Parents of learners in grades 1 to 9 will from January 2023 be required to take their children to day schools.
This is after the government announced plans to abolish boarding primary schools.
The government has also announced that there will be no boarding Junior Secondary Schools.
It is only recently that the State House made changes to the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), directing that junior secondary schools will be domiciled in existing primary schools.
The decision was made after President William Ruto received an interim report from an education reforms taskforce that he formed in October.
A final report is expected by March 2023.
But even as the education sector works on adjusting to the new changes to CBC, Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang has revealed yet another adjustment that will need to be done.
“We must create a way in which we can be with our children and the only way is through day schooling. The first nine years of learning that are Grades 1 to 9, the direction that the government is taking will be day schooling,” said the PS.
The new directive means all private and some public boarding primary schools will now be expected to convert to day schools.
Parenting
However, according to Kipsang, the new move has been informed of the need for parents to spend most of the time with the children before they move to senior secondary school, which is largely boarding as of now in the country.
“We cannot outsource our responsibility as we parents, we only co-parent with teachers but we cannot outsource parenting from the teachers,” noted the Education PS.
“Going forward, day schooling will be the direction, that’s the only way we shall be able to engage with our children,” he added.
The policy shift that will see an end to boarding primary school comes at a time there have also been calls for the abolishing of boarding secondary schools.
Abolish boarding schools call
A section of Kenya Primary Schools Head teachers Association (KePSHA) had early this year called for an end to boarding schools so as to address the unrest in schools.
But in response, the then Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha had ruled out the possibility of heeding to the calls.
“Why would one imagine that we want to dismantle boarding schools, it doesn’t make sense. Mine is to see we have to remain firm. With those few schools where students have defeated their parents at home and they are bringing that rowdy attitude in schools we should be able to deal with them,” Prof. Magoha said in January 2022.
“Perhaps rather than abolishing boarding schools, we should get approved boarding schools which will deal with these kinds of activities firmly,” he added.
