Most teachers handling the first group of Grade Four pupils in January will probably resort to trial and error after their employer ruled out training for the new syllabus, citing recent budget cuts.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) chief executive officer Nancy Macharia told the National Assembly committee on Education that the decision follows recent slashing of their recurrent budget by Sh310.3 million in the mini-budget.
The TSC had planned to train 300,000 teachers ahead of the competency-based curriculum (CBC) grade four roll-out in January.
The commission has reduced the targeted teachers for re-training to 96,836, something that it says could hamper quality.
The Treasury cut TSC budget for operations and maintenance from Sh1.72 billion to Sh1.41 billion and the entire Sh54 million for development projects in the supplementary budget.
The TSC has been re-training primary school teachers to enable them handle the new practical 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum rolled out in January to replace the theory-based 8-4-4 system.
“If we do not get the money for the December and April training, we will not be able to train teachers ahead of the first Grade Four in January. We had planned to train the teachers continuously and the cuts will adversely affect quality,” Mrs Macharia told MPs yesterday.
The TSC had proposed Sh580 million to cater for teachers’ training during the December holiday and a further Sh400 million in April.
The commission trained 91,620 teachers in April while 68,490 were trained in August this year for the new curriculum.
Acting Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani in September told ministries and agencies to prepare for “brutal” budget cuts targeting travel, entertainment, training, publicity and car costs — which cost taxpayers Sh30.1 billion in the year to June last year, up from Sh17.8 billion in 2013. The CBC was piloted from 2017.
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