The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has announced plans to retrain all secondary school teachers in the country.
According to the commission, the teachers are ill equipped to impart relevant knowledge even as the country embraces a new system of education.
The announcement that over 110,000 secondary school teachers will undergo retraining to equip them with adequate sets of skills to enable handle the Competency-Based Curriculum system.
The teachers employers have made it mandatory for all teachers to go back to school.
This means that the teachers will have to adjust with regards to subject combinations – with teachers currently trained on only two teaching subject – which the commission feels does not suffice.
Subjects to be affected
Some of the teaching subjects the teachers employers is keen to promote include pre-technical and pre-vocational education, life skills, agriculture and health education, Kenya sign language, visual arts and performing arts.
Home science and biology teachers will also be retrained to enable them handle health education. The same goes for teachers of social studies, sports and physical education, Kiswahili, sign language, Arabic, French, business studies, mathematics, History, CRE, and building construction. Others are Islamic Religious Education, Hindu Religious Education, home economics, aviation, electricity and metal technology, physical sciences, English and literature, German and Agriculture.
Which colleges will train teachers
“We advise and recommend that the teacher education curriculum should be made flexible and aligned to enable a single teacher to teach a variety of subjects,”said TSC CEO Nancy Macharia.
This she said was important as preparations are underway to introduce junior and senior secondary schools soonest.
Three diploma colleges of Kagumo, Kibabii and Lugari are set to admit students for the new subjects, with the Kenya Technical Training College directed to upscale the training of teachers in the technical courses.