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The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) has called for an urgent stakeholder meeting with the Government to sort out the Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) crisis.

Kuppet National Chairperson, Omboko Milemba insisted that it is not too late for the government to domicile JSS in secondary schools, which are better prepared to handle the learners.
Meaningful education

With the second JSS class of Grade 8 joining in January, Milemba said the teachers will be even more stretched and unless the government can hire 85,000 teachers by then, the current staffing in JSS would be insufficient to offer meaningful education in the institutions.

“For the last several months, KUPPET leaders have traversed the country for branch annual general meetings that bring together all our members from the respective county branches. Everywhere we went, we have heard agonising tales about the suffering of our students in JSS,” said Milemba, in a press conference held in Nairobi.

In anticipation of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) transition, Milemba stated that the Basic Education department had invested massively in providing JSS infrastructure, including classrooms, in secondary schools.

He said that no effective learning is taking place in the institutions and so far, the government has posted only one JSS teacher per school or stream.

“This one teacher – who is trained in only two subjects – is forced to teach all the 14 subjects in the JSS curriculum. The teacher handles nine academic lessons per day and is also the one responsible for physical education, games and extra-curricular activities,” he stated.

Kuppet insisted the primary schools where JSS is domiciled lack the critical infrastructure for JSS, including laboratories, libraries, and facilities for extracurricular activities.