LIST OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS TO HOST JUNIOR HIGH

Some 2,300 public primary schools have been selected to host Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) in January next year.

This comes even as the government continues to engage in last minute rush to ensure that there are enough classrooms to accommodate Grade Seven students.

Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Prof George Magoha on Wednesday said the selected primary schools are those sharing a compound with secondary schools.

“We have said as a government, when a high school and a primary school are within the same compound, we shall also use the physical resources that are there,” he said.

The CS said across the country, the 2,300 primary schools provide an accessible number of 5,000 classrooms which will be used to host the JSS.

The CS was speaking at Pumwani Boys High School in Nairobi where he oversaw groundbreaking ceremony of the Competency Based Curriculum(CBC) classrooms construction.

Prof Magoha has been moving from one county to another, commissioning the construction of classrooms in various schools.

He also visited Pumwani Girls Secondary School in Nairobi to assess available classrooms.

On Tuesday, Prof Magoha was also in Sironga Girls High school in Nyamira County, where he also laid the foundation for the phase two CBC classroom construction while on Monday, he was at Kereri Girls High School in Kisii County.

Best performing counties
So far, the best performing counties include Nandi, Nyandarua, Kisii and Nyamira counties where some classrooms have been completed.

The government completed the over 10,000 classrooms meant for junior secondary phase one last month.

He launched the construction of over 3,500 classrooms meant for phase two this month.

“Within the next three to five weeks, these classrooms should have been completed so that I leave office I give a good gift to our children,” he said.

Private schools
The CS said the government is also closely working with private schools to ensure that they will also accommodate some Junior secondary school students.

The government is expecting private schools to construct over 5,000 classrooms for JSS.

Prof Magoha said the guidelines for placement of students from primary to junior secondary schools will be released in two weeks’ time.

“We shall tell you precisely what we are going to do with our children, but in general terms, for those parents who are so worried about their kids, like the ones in the private sector, there is no harm with those children staying there for an extra one year so that they start moving out in year nine,” he said.

The CS said the classrooms must be constructed and completed by latest one week after the elections.

In Nairobi, Prof Magoha said so far 20 primary private schools have been cleared for registration while another 70 private primary schools will be cleared by Saturday to host the Junior secondary school.

“If that the clearance is of the private primary schools is done, that will give us close to 1000 classrooms that we require as a deficit in Nairobi,” he said.

rof Magoha, however dismissed the idea of the government funding students in private schools saying capitation will only go to students in public secondary schools.

“The government is spending 25.9 percent of the national budget on education in the public sector, and there is no way the government will give capitation in private secondary schools,” he said.

He added that where government is required to facilitate, the government will collaborate with the private schools to ensure that they are encouraged to do what is required of them to register.

The notion that the government will place students to private junior secondary school must end as government cannot provide capitation to the private schools. They are in business, parents who take their students to the schools do it at will,” he said.