The number of the registered teacher has grown to over 700,000 with about 7,000 education teachers graduate from the universities each year. Out of these 312,000 are employed by the Teacher Service Commission with Primary Schools taking in 217,239 teachers while secondary schools taking 89,715.
As it stands there are plans underway to abolish the 47-year-old Bachelor of Education degree and it will be replaced with a five-year rigorous teacher training programme. In the new proposal, secondary school students who qualify to join university will do basic degrees in either science or arts before proceeding for a one-year postgraduate diploma training.
Contrary to the traditional way where the majority of secondary school teachers are trained at public universities and diploma colleges and are required to specialise in two teaching subject where those trained in public universities spend four years while those in diploma colleges train for three years before being certified.
Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang’ had earlier on given hints about the new policy shift as it seeks to prepare educators’ public personalities and teaching styles as well as develop their classroom interaction skills. Mr Kipsand noted the formation of Kenya School of Education will centralise matters on teaching and management with the help of TSC. This new policy is backed by Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association, Kenya National Union of Teachers and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers.
According to education experts, the proposed policy is not being advanced because the Education degree is no longer marketable, but to professionalise and regulate secondary school teacher training.
Kenya School of Education will sit as the sole institution mandated to register, certify and train teachers before they can teach in any school. Borrowing from the Kenyan School of Law, at the end of their four years in universities, the graduates can opt to take the state licensing exam and become fully certified teachers by attending KSE.