Secondary schools are bracing for a fresh wave of enrolment pressure after 1,052,364 KCPE candidates were cleared to join Form One in January 2019 under the government’s second phase of 100 per cent transition.
The article was published on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, at a time when the new intake was expected to add to about 800,000 learners who had already moved to secondary school the previous year. That would represent a 31 per cent jump, even as Auditor General Edward Ouko warned that many schools were already congested.
Mr Ouko’s report, tabled before Parliament recently, said 85 newly upgraded secondary schools lacked enough dormitories, libraries and teachers, among other basic facilities. He warned that the infrastructure gap was undermining the rollout of the transition policy.
According to the report, some schools had resorted to triple-decker beds in dormitories, a practice that went against quality assurance standards requiring either single or double-decker beds. Other schools had no library services, while some had turned classrooms into libraries.
The audit also found that several schools had no laboratories, forcing students to sit practical examinations in shifts. The report added that the shortage of facilities was affecting the quality of education in the affected institutions.
Head teachers were told to prepare for the surge by ensuring they had adequate classrooms, desks, chairs, laboratories and teachers. But the Teachers Service Commission had asked the government to fund the recruitment of 12,000 teachers annually to cope with the growing population, while the allocation for the year covered only 7,000 new teachers.
Selection was scheduled to begin on December 3. Most candidates were expected to target elite national schools, which continued to attract large numbers of applicants because of their status and facilities. Few students were expected to choose the upgraded 85 national schools.
All candidates who scored 400 marks were to join national schools, whether they sat KCPE in private or public schools.
