Education cabinet secretary Ezekiel Machogu has ordered chiefs to conduct a mop up to ensure 100 percent school transition to both junior secondary school and form one admission.
Speaking in Mombasa on Thursday,Machogu listed Kilifi and Kwale counties as having registered only 30 percent in the junior secondary admissions.
“Education is free and compulsory and that is why we are instating on 100 percent transition, and that is why we are monitoring the registration of students in junior secondary, and form one admission,” said Machogu.
He therefore asked local administration officials including county commissioners,chiefs and subchiefs to conduct an extensive mop up campaign to take learners to school.
“We have found Kwale and Kilifi counties are not doing very well ,and we are asking chiefs and sub chiefs to mop up and ensure 100 percent, currently we are at 95 percent transition,” said Machogu.
The cabinet secretary warned parents will be prosecuted for failing to avail their children to school saying the government is spending a lot of money in the payment of capitation for learners.
“ They have been coming slowly. We blame the parents because they have not been serious, they have been holding back their children for house chores and that is why we are embarking on a serious assignment with chiefs to mop up,” said Machogu.
Machogu has also affirmed that the competence based curriculum cannot be abolished to revert to the 8-4-4 system.
Machogu said the government will ensure the amendments presented by the presidential working group will be considered to fine tune the CBC system.
This is after Members of Parliament called on the government to speedily address challenges affecting the competency-based curriculum (CBC) or else abolish it altogether.
“We have to go with what other countries are doing, the standard in other countries are different and we have to align our education systems with growing global demands,” said Machogu.
The National Assembly stated that there are teething problems they said have hindered the smooth implementation of the curriculum, six years after its roll-out.
“There is no going back, we are moving forward ,there is no way we can go back to the 8-4-4 syatem,the system that we have to accept is CBC and that is the way to go,” said Machogu.
Speaking in Mombasa during on the sidelines ongoing Inaugural Biennial Conference on Universities Funding in Kenya held in Mombasa Machogu said the train has left the station and is not turning back.
The Mps claim the state of unpreparedness on implementation of CBC has been exposed largely by the transition last month of the first CBC cohort to Junior Secondary School (JSS).
MPs approved a resolution to press the government to address the many challenges plaguing the new system of education that replaced the nearly four-decades-old 8-4-4 system, whose last group of learners will sit Standard Eight and Form Four national examinations this December.
