Key issues to tackle as Teachers’ Day marked

Kenya yesterday joined the world in marking the International Teachers’ Day whose objective is to mobilise public attention to address issues affecting the profession and, importantly, foreground quality education. For Kenya, the day is momentous because it comes at a time of major transformation in the education sector.

The country is experimenting with a new education system known as competency based curriculum (CBC), a departure from the 8-4-4 that has been in existence for more than three decades. At the centre of curriculum change are teachers; who are the implementers and assessors of its outcomes. A critical question has been teacher preparedness.

CBC is practice and experiential based learning. Teachers are facilitators and not the sole dispensers of knowledge. Students are required to participate effectively in the learning process, practising what they learn in class and also bringing in their daily experiences into the classroom. Conventionally, however, teachers have been socialised to deliver content and reduce learners to receivers of knowledge.

In addition, the curriculum puts emphasis on the role of parents in their children’s learning, where they are expected to work with the children and guide them through the context-based assignments they are given.

Changed curriculum orientation therefore necessitates purposeful shifting of teachers conceptual understanding of their roles, hence the imperative for impactful training.

On paper, the Teachers Service Commission and the Ministry of Education have conducted several training sessions for teachers to catalyse mental shift. However, when recently the government conducted a pilot assessment of the implementation of the curriculum by testing Grade Three pupils, it merged there was deep variance between policy and practice. Teachers and schools largely organised the assessments like it is done with the national examination. The sobering lesson was that teachers have not understood and internalised the new curriculum, which should compel the ministry and TSC to rethink the approach of teachers’ skills upgrade and induction for CBC.

Ultimately, the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) is expected to compile and share the outcomes of the Grade Three tests, which should then inform learning content.

Away from CBC, the other major critical issue facing the teaching profession is compensation. Teachers through their unions have been clashing with the employer, TSC, over poor pay. Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) have been aggressively pushing for new and improved pay package for their members and which on many occasions have snowballed into strikes. The onus is on the government to enhance teachers’ compensation to boost performance. Related to this is tackling biting staff shortage in schools.

In essence, the government should improve terms and conditions of service for teachers to guarantee quality learning.