Mombasa County residents have been asked to be cautious of private schools advertising that they have been approved to offer Junior Secondary Schools education.
The County Director of Education Peter Magiri while addressing the media at his office Tuesday morning said that no school, public or private had so far received approval from the government through the ministry of education to offer JSS.
“Some private schools are cunning; I have seen many with banners saying they have been registered to offer JSS. As we are speaking now, no school as of today has been given an okay to run JSS,” said Magiri.
Magiri said that they were depending on the private schools to ensure the 100 percent transition policy by the government is achieved, however, he noted that this will not compromise their quality approval process.
He said the Ministry of Education has rolled out a nationwide inspection of primary schools to ascertain their preparedness to host junior secondary pupils.
The ministry will be checking on the qualification of teachers, school enrolment, and facilities before permitting any institution to admit pupils for grade 7.
At the end of the audit Magiri said, a report will be submitted to the ministry by January 20 for parents to know the number of schools eligible and that have been approved by the government to offer JSS.
The assessment, he said, was targeting both private and public primary schools.
About 1.6 million who sat the inaugural Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) exams are expected to report to junior secondary school on January 30.
“Don’t be in a hurry, wait for the government to publish all approved schools so that you get information and be advised accordingly. If there is a parent who has already paid any fees, pray so hard the school is approved,” Magiri said.
The education ministry last week issued an assessment tool to be used to vet the criteria of schools that will be allowed to offer junior secondary school.
“There is an assessment tool issued by the ministry through the department of quality assurance that we shall be administering in our assessments. The priority we shall be looking at is enrolment of students”
“Schools with enrollment going down and did not have at least 45 candidates for the inaugural Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) exams may not be recommended,” he said.
The government is also looking at the availability of physical facilities including adequate classrooms, labs and playgrounds.
To cater for the talent pathway as catered for in the new Competency Based Curriculum, the government will assess if a school has room for expansion to have home science rooms, music rooms, theatres rooms among others.
The ministry shall also consider the number of teachers and their qualification in their school’s report for submission.
“We shall consider the existing teachers but must look at their qualification and specialization. Even if you have a degree it must be relevant as outlined in the tool,” Magiri said.
Last year, the government embarked on the construction of 10,000 new classrooms at secondary schools as initial proposals were for JSS to be domiciled in secondary school.
The government announced that the classrooms will be used by secondary schools and will ease the burden of transition to senior secondary school.