Usawa Agenda has welcomed the move to reverse the government’s teacher delocalisation and transfer policy as recently approved by Parliament.

In its recommendation to the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms, Usawa Agenda is however opposed to the idea of transferring teachers to their wards.

The group said posting a teacher to their ward disheartens parents as most of them work for the teachers as farmhands to earn a living.

“The closest a teacher should be posted is in a neighbouring ward save for specific areas that may have transport-related challenges due to their vastness or security situation,” it says in its report.

On November 3, MPs unanimously approved a motion by Lurambi MP Titus Khamala to successfully reverse the policy which has been a subject of debate among the various education stakeholders.

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Hundreds of teachers have already applied to be transferred close to their homes.

The non-profit organization also called for an amendment of the TSC Act to make it mandatory to ensure a fair distribution of teachers across the country and different categories of schools.

The current teacher deployment framework, it states, has greatly disadvantaged hardship areas of the country, most of which continue to suffer perennial teacher shortages.

“As it is now TSC is not mandated to ensure equity in teacher distribution. Once it deploys a headteacher to a new school, it has fulfilled its mandate, deployment of additional teachers then depends on “availability,” the 13-page report says.

On capitation, the lobby wants the state to review the model noting as it is established learning institutions are being favoured to the detriment of small schools.

The group’s executive director Emmanuel Manyasa said the capitation model will provide for a fixed component to enable small schools to invest in their capacity development.

Manyasa said the capitation to be provided to low-cost private schools is a priority because they play a major complementary role to the government in the provision of basic education.

“It is simple to implement, but inequitable and inadequate in addressing the funding needs of the school system,” he said.

“The funding should be targeted to those in need and provide differential amounts per learner based on their needs.”

The initial plans by the ministry of education to get rid of boarding schools in junior secondary has received immense support after the idea got backed by an education lobby group.

The current debate on placement criteria for students also came out clear since questions were raised on the possibility of having 12–15-year-old children in boarding schools.

In the just ending 8-4-4 system, learners of this age range would be in Class 7 and 8. However, in the CBC system, the group will be enrolled in junior secondary.

According to Usawa Agenda boss Emmanuel Manyasa, the pupils are too young and need to be close to their parents.

Manyasa made the suggestion at a regional conference to mark five years since the launch of CBC. He maintained that the pupils be sent to subcounty schools, which are all day institutions.

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“It would be very important that these children are not sent to the bigger schools that are far away from home,” Manyasa said.

Further, Manyasa said that the aspect of parental guidance for the teenagers might be lost, if the learners are taken to boarding schools.

He urged the state to invest in the subcounty schools, which might host junior secondary students, if the proposal is adopted.

“Children can commute, and if they are not able then they can be in a closer boarding school that every weekend they are allowed to go home,” Manyasa said.

This is even as Curriculum Reforms and Implementation PS Fatuma Chege said the learners will preferably be placed in day schools.

Usawa Agenda Executive Director, Dr. Emanuel Manyasa, has raised concerns over exam preparedness among KCPE and KCSE candidates, arguing that schools have opted to close earlier yet there was a midterm break that was not factored in the calendar.

Manyasa questioned whether learners completed the second term syllabus after high school principals opted to send children back home a week to the official closing date.

According to the revised education calendar, second term started on October 11 and was expected to end on December 23, implying that schools are expected to close next week Thursday after some 11 weeks of learning. This was, however, without mid-term break that was slotted as an after-thought as learners’ indiscipline went up, eating into almost a week of learning.

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Usawa maintains that with early closures, some schools have lost up to two weeks of learning time, meaning that students may have actively spent only nine weeks in class.

Manyasa now wants Education officials to craft a roadmap to help learners recover lost time. “A few questions require forward thinking to avert a catastrophe next term: Have schools covered what they were supposed to cover in second term? If not, how will this affect the candidates’ exams readiness come next term?” said Manyasa.

“What is the feasible plan to ensure the term runs smoothly and successfully for the benefit of all the school communities­–learners, teachers and parents?” added Manyasa.

Schools started closing as early as December 14 as students’ unruliness continued to rock second term. A number of schools closed Friday with many more expected to send children home on Monday next week ahead of Christmas festivities. Third term under the revised school calendar will start January 3, 2022 and end March 4 – after nine weeks.

Kenya National Examination Council Chief Executive David Njengere had earlier said that there should be no cause for alarm over the upcoming tests.

“We do not envisage any problems in next years’ examinations because we have done this before and there were no major issues,” said Njengere.

The compressed school academic calendar released by the ministry of education may cause fatigue among learners, as per the analysis by Education experts.

For schools to recover lost time in regard to the calendar, teachers and learners must be ready for a very heavy workload between 2021 and 2022. This may result to rapid burnout and increased stress levels among teachers and learners. Additionally, schools should expect high truancy levels among learners due to inability to cope with increased stress and burn out.

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With little rest or refresher time due to excessively learning content, learners may find themselves in a state of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion.

“The school calendar makes some assumptions that will certainly not hold…. It ignores what stress and burnout can do to both learners and teachers and this may even lead to unrests,” said Usawa Agenda Executive Director Dr.  Emmanuel Manyasa.

Manyasa argued that the new school calendar must not necessarily be about syllabus completions and transition to the next grades. Understanding the syllabus is key since it is what may sustain a learner in the next grade and enhance application of learnt content.

“What do we want to achieve by compressing the calendar? This will not help children to learn,” said Manyasa.

Zizi Afrique Executive Director, John Mugo, also agreed with Manyasa’s observations that the school calendar has been abnormally compressed. Out of the eight school terms, four have 10 weeks, two have 11 weeks and two have nine weeks.

“For 8-4-4 curriculum, this implies a lot of content compression. The children who are already behind will fall further behind, since we may not even have time or teacher energy for remedial,” said Mugo.

According to Mugo, the holidays are too short to enhance a refresh. “Of the six non-examination holidays in the two years, four are only a week-long,” said Mugo.

Mugo urged parents whose kids are in boarding primary schools to consider withdrawing them since they will be the most hit by the burn out.

“Likely to be affected most are primary school children in boarding schools. This might be the time for parents to just withdraw them to day schools,” said Mugo.

Even though some teachers proposed removal of some topics or synchronizing some topics, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD, insisted that there will be no shortcuts in syllabus coverage.

“Ways can be found to cover more work without necessarily reducing the content,” said Prof Ongondo, KICD CEO.

Okwach Abagi, a senior researcher at the Centre for Research and Development, said congested school calendar was a bad idea that would not work effectively for the children.

“A better idea was to keep children at home and allow them to start academic calendar in September next year,” said Prof Abagi.

Usawa Agenda has proposed to the ministry to consider moderating the academic calendar to start in September. If the ministry of education adopts this proposal, then ECDE, primary and secondary school learners will begin a new school year in September 2021, after fully recovering 2020 term two and term three syllabus.

“This would give teachers reasonable duration to cover term two and term three work compared to the June calendar,” said Dr. Emmanuel Manyasa, usawa agenda executive director. Under the usawa agenda proposal, Grade four, class eight and form four learners will complete their second term lessons in December and not resume in January with the rest of the learners.

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On 3^rd January 2021, only the learners currently at home would reopen to complete the term two syllabus. In May 2021, all the learners will resume school for their third term, which will end in July 2021.

Manyasa proposes that KCPE and KCSE to be done in either July or august 2021, once third term ends.

“All the classes would then start a new academic year in September with easy transition of learners to high school, tertiary and university education,” the director quipped.

Usawa Agenda’s proposal comes at a time when the task force on reopening of schools has too much headache concerning how to reasonably recover the lost school year. Some members of the task force proposed skipping some topics, a proposal that Manyasa seemed not to be satisfied with.

“It would be very insensitive not to cover the syllabus, as inadequate syllabus coverage leads to mass failure among learners. About 70% of KCSE candidates for instance, who sat examinations last year scored D+ and below because of syllabus coverage. We cannot afford to mess with that,” the Usawa Agenda boss argued.