The Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) will start training of Junior Secondary School (JSS) intern teachers in December.

Cemastea trained the first cohorts of JSS intern teachers in April and May this year. The training of the second cohorts will start on 13th to 16th December.

JSS acting Principals were asked to facilitate the teachers to attend the training. Below is a circular by Cemastea to guide on how the training will be done.

To: All County Directors of Education Date 3rd November 2023

Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA)

RE:DECEMBER 2023 COUNTY LEVEL TRAINING OF JUNIOR SCHOOL MATHEMATICS AND INTEGRATED SCIENCE TEACHERS ON PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

CEMASTEA will train the newly recruited Junior School (JS) teachers assigned to teach Mathematics and Integrated Science.

The training will seek to enhance the teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). The county level training will be conducted for 4 days from Wednesday 13th to Saturday 16th December 2023.

The purpose of this letter therefore is to ask the CTCDC to:

1)Invite the JS teachers to participate in the training on the said dates. See Annex 1 for the distribution of teachers, centres, and trainers.

2) Ensure that only the newly recruited Js teachers assigned to teach Mathematics and Integrated Science are invited

The JS teachers that participated in the April/May 2023 are not eligible.

3) Ensure that the teachers being invited are distributed across the two subject clusters of Mathematics and Integrated Science as in Annex I.

4)Ensure that the INSET centre (s) hosting the training is/are ready for the training.

5) Purchase the required materials for the training as listed in Annex II, subject to the limit of the Approved Budget for December 2023 JS County INSET.

6) Pay each participant a Daily Allowance as per the Approved Budget for December 2023 JS County INSET to enable them to find their own accommodation close to the designated training venue.

7) Pay each participant a return transport allowance as per the Approved Budget for December 2023 JS County INSET

8) Incur all other expenses related to the training strictly in line with the Approved Budget for December 2023 JS County JNSET.

9)Ensure that officers assigned the role of coordination take full responsibility for managing attendance registers during training and compilation of lists of trainers.

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The centre for mathematics, science and technology education in Africa, CEMASTEA, has invited all junior secondary school teachers to attend an inset training program on Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for Junior Secondary Schools

This will be In line with CEMASTEA’S mandate as stipulated in the Guidelines for Implementation of Junior Secondary Education.

The inset, which will adapt a cascade model, will be conducted at the county levels for 5 days, and it will be in two batches as follows:

Batch 1: Monday 23^rd to Friday 28^th April,2023

Batch 2: Monday 1^st to Friday 5^th May,2023

However, the counties of (1) Garissa (2) Isiolo (3) Lamu (4) Marsabit (5) Mombasa (6) Samburu(7)Tana River which have 200 JSS teachers or less will conduct the training in one batch from Monday 23^rd  to Friday 28^th  April 2023.

Allowances

Each JSS teacher will be paid a daily allowance of ksh. 2000. Further, there will be a transport allowance of between ksh. 500- ksh 1000 (to be reimbursed on the last day), depending on the distance from respective schools to the venue. The training will be strictly non-residential. Participants are highly encouraged to find accommodation near the training venues to minimize any inconvenience.

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The Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) has done a commendable job since March 2019, when schools were closed due to covid-19. In its theme dubbed, ‘ensuring continued learning during crisis times,’ CEMASTEA has trained more than 12,000 teachers online in Kenya alone since covid stuck. The teachers would register through a link that CEMASTEA posted in its twitter handle. Some were sourced from schools by SMASSE trainers. The teachers, who were not necessarily science or mathematics teachers, and were from various countries, were organized into cohorts and each cohort was taken through a four week training on how to handle their learners during crisis times. The platforms for training were zoom or Google classroom. After the training, some teachers immediately organized learners within their communities and started teaching.

The in-service Education and Training also produced about 1,163 County Trainers in all the 47 counties.

CEMASTEA Director Jacinta Akatsa, confirmed that the training exercise had seen to it that quality training and learning continued amid schools’ closure during the wake of the pandemic.

Among the awards given were certificates, trophies, laptops and cash money, to motivate the teachers.

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“Besides the awards, it was by dint of collaboration between e-Kitabu and CEMASTEA that an online competition was conceived and introduced to enable teachers to develop and deliver content online to learners using a suitable learning management system. The competition started at the County level and proceeded to the regional and national levels,” stated Akatsa during the virtual ceremony to celebrate this milestone.

“It calls for professional flexibility, patience, personal strength and endurance to deliver in unpredictable circumstances where technology such as the internet can suddenly fail midstream. Teaching remotely is truly challenging and only the best and dedicated can excel,” said Dr Nthamburi, the TSC director of quality assurance, in recognition of CEMASTEA efforts.

The categories of Kenyan teachers that CEMASTEA awarded were;

• The best teachers and trainers per region. Each teacher in this category received a lap-top, a trophy and a certificate of excellence.
• Three teachers and three trainers who emerged the best nationally .This category received a laptop, a trophy, a certificate of excellence, and cash. Overall winners received Ksh. 100, 000 each, first runners’ up received KSh.75, 000 and second runners’ up received Ksh. 50,000.
• All teachers who participated in the training received a certificate of participation.