All secondary school teachers in Kenya will be forced to teach a third subject on top of the two teaching subjects they are currently teaching. This follows the proposal by the teachers’ service commission, TSC to scrap education degree.

If the proposal goes through, all currently employed high school teachers and unemployed graduate teachers will have to pursue a mandatory post training course, which will last 9 months. It is expected that alongside the course units for the additional course, pedagogical approaches to the three teaching subjects will be handled. Teachers therefore have to get a third subject which they will train to teach in the competency based curriculum, alongside the two current ones.

What is not clear is whether current teachers and teacher graduates who scored below B- in any of the three teaching subjects will be allowed to teach senior secondary schools. The conditions for recruitment as a teacher for senior secondary schools, according to the proposal in the policy document, framework for entry in the teaching service, are;

1. A three year Bachelor of Arts or science degree, followed by a one year post graduate diploma in education.
2. KCSE mean grade of C plus or its equivalent
3. B minus in the three teaching subjects

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So the major worry is whether the affected teachers will remain in senior secondary schools or will be demoted to junior secondarys schools, despite their higher qualifications. Currently, TSC insists on C+ in the teaching subjects. In as much as most teachers must have scored C+ and above in the two teaching subjects they are currently handling or about to start handling, getting a third subject will be a very hard task for teachers since either the B- qualification factor will lock them out, or the relationship between the third subject and the current two subjects will be hard to trace. For instance, a biology and chemistry teacher who did only two sciences in high school and probably scored below B- in mathematics, will have languages and humanities as the only options for the third subject. Logically, there is no relationship between sciences and humanities and this might give the teacher a very hard time with the weird combination.  Furthermore, its long since teachers interacted with that third subject and they will need subject matter knowledge more than the pedagogical knowledge that they are expected to receive during the nine months’ training.

A perusal through the policy document by TSC titled, Framework for Entry in the Teaching Service, training for teachers at the university, makes one to expect massive changes in teacher education.

TSC has embarked on a transformative agenda, which will see the framework for entry in the teaching service revised.

“All the 8-4-4 and Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) students must undertake first, Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science courses for a period of three years majoring on the key subjects and, thereafter, undertake a Postgraduate Diploma in Education for a period of one year for teaching at junior and senior school and SNE (Special Needs Education),” the document stipulates.

“Diploma in Education courses for CBC students at each level shall be three years after 8-4-4 and senior school since they will have had time for specialization in the content areas,” the document reads.

Admission into all diplomas and degrees in teacher education courses shall be ”demand-driven”, meaning the number of teachers graduating each year will be controlled.

The Universities’ Academic Staff Union (UASU) has expressed dissatisfaction with the contents of the document.

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“They want to erase the Bachelors of Education programme so that all students just enroll for either Bachelor of Arts or of Science. When they graduate and one is interested in teaching, he or she must return for a postgraduate diploma in education,” said Dr Wilfridah Itolondo, Kenyatta University UASU chapter vice-chairperson.

University lecturers feel this could be a plan to cleverly implement recommendations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on cutting budgets and expenditure in some state corporations, which may involve freezing of new employment or pushing for retrenchments as the qualification for a Sh257 billion loan to Kenya.

According to the union, this move will push thousands of trainers in the faculty of education out of employment.

“In fact, according to us, it might just be one of the measures being taken to address the IMF report,” claimed Dr Itolondo.

The lecturers through their union have vowed to resist any structural changes without involving them.

Kenyatta University UASU chapter secretary, Dr George Lukoye, said whereas they are not opposed to any reforms, they are only demanding to be involved as key stakeholders.

“It is no secret that Kenyatta University is facing high financial risks. These financial risks may have been exacerbated by the Covid-19. The union looks forward to the IMF and the relevant government agencies to carry out a thorough and in-depth forensic audit to ascertain how the university found itself in this financial crisis,” said Dr Lukoye