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President William Ruto has advised parents whose children are joining Grade Seven to retain them in the primary school they have been attending, saying there is no shortage of classrooms.

Ruto pledged that there will be a 100 per cent transition to junior secondary, noting that every primary school has a class for Grade Seven learners.

“I do not think any parent will be advised to transfer their children to any other school. We are sorting out the teachers and the curriculum. The only thing that will be pending, and the government will have a conversation with the Members of the National Assembly, is to build for them a laboratory within a year,” the President said during a joint interview with television stations on Wednesday evening.

“In fact, it is possible to convert some of the extra classrooms into laboratories and it is also possible for schools that share the same compound with a secondary school for Grade Seven to carry out their laboratory work in the secondary section… so we have all manner of permutations to make sure that we sort out this transition,” he explained.

Although he admitted that transition will not be easy, he was optimistic that it is doable saying that a lot of work is going on to ensure a smooth process.

He said the change from 8-4-4 to Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) is the right move.

“There could have been some missteps, maybe we should have taken an extra one or two years to make sure we get teachers on board and all other facilities but that is now water under the bridge. That is why it was a conversation in the elections and I took the decision that for us to get professional advise, let us put together a presidential working party of educationists and other stakeholders and they have done a good job,” he said.

Kenya Kwanza manifesto

The President said the working party talked to teachers, parents and other stakeholders and it was unanimous on domiciling junior secondary in primary schools.

He said that at least 86 per cent of 20,000 people engaged said they wanted junior secondary pupils to be near their parents because many of them are still young.

“As government, we took the decision that we are going to hire an extra 30,000 teachers to make sure that the transition is smooth and another 30,000 will be hired in coming years progressively,” said Ruto.

He said the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) had been given the latitude to decide how many teachers will help in the transition to junior secondary.

The Kenya Kwanza manifesto says 110,000 teachers will  be hired in five years.

He said they were engaging TSC with the view of determining how many diploma and degree teachers are teaching in primary school and can support junior secondary.

“All this is mapped out because it is important to have a transition for our children and ground our education properly,” said Ruto.

On university education, he said the presidential working party is expected to give recommendations on reforms in the ailing sector.

He reiterated his proposal for a merger between the TVETs funding board, University Fund and Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).

“We need a system that ensures our education system is grounded on a sound economy. As we talk now, most of our universities are bankrupt…it is time we sat and assigned all our universities’ students that we have the capacity to fund and to give bursary, otherwise if we continue this way, we will lower the quality of our universities and it will affect our human capital development,” said the President.

He said that the government is already pushing the resources for HELB to Sh21 billion.

“In my opinion, it should be possible that as we place students, there should be funding available for each or any other supporting bursaries to make sure that children complete their education,” he said.

On student sponsorship, the President said the number of learners getting support from the government should be commensurate to available resources.