The Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Dr. Belio Kipsang today officially opened the Kenya Primary Schools Head Teachers Association (KEPSHA) 18th Annual Delegates Conference at Sheikh Zayed Children Welfare Center, Mombasa County.
In his remarks, the PS asked the Head teachers to capture all the information for learners in the National Education Management System (NEMIS) in order to access all the basic facilities.
“Going forward we shall only have one single source of truth which will be NEMIS in addressing all the issues for our learners including capitation, books distribution among other Basic amenities,” said the PS.
Similarly, he called upon parents to take up the primary responsibility as first educators to walk with their children as the Government moves towards empowering the children through parents.
He noted that parenting cannot be outsourced to teachers. “We can only co-parent with teachers,” he added.
The government has hinted at phasing out boarding schools to give parents adequate time to interact and mold their children to become responsible citizens.
Government also hinted at abolishing classification of public secondary schools as national, extra-county and county institutions.
Move to phase out boarding schools, according to Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang, will give parents adequate time to interact and mould their children to become responsible citizens as opposed to the current situation where learners spend most of their time away from their parents.
Kipsang emphasised that the government was keen to ensuring that learners, especially in Grade One up to Grade Nine, are domiciled in day schools as part of strengthening parental engagement for quality learning.
“I urge parents that it is our primary responsibility as first educators to walk with our children. As we move forward, day schooling will be the direction because that is the only way we shall be able to engage with our children,” he Kipsang.
The PS made the remarks during the ongoing 18th edition of Kenya Primary Schools Head Teachers Association annual General meeting and conference in Mombasa.
Kipsang further noted that day schooling concept is one of the critical terms of reference for the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms, noting that Kenya has the highest number of children in boarding schools globally.
This is despite 70 per cent of learning institutions in the country being day schools.
“This country is one of the rare countries where 28 per cent of our children are in boarding schools. Globally, rarely will you get any country that goes beyond 15 per cent. Ours is the highest anywhere so we need to start socialising ourselves that we need to be with our children and the only way we shall be with our children is for them to be in day schools,” he explained.
“I am a parent and even ourselves as head teachers we cannot outsource our responsibilities. We must remain with our responsibilities. We co-parent with teachers but we do not outsource parenting to teachers, and therefore we must walk together towards making our children acquire the values we expect of them,” he added.
On the plan to do away with the classification of secondary schools, President William Ruto, in a speech read on his behalf by the PS, announced that the task force on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) would submit proposals towards this end.
The Profile Feature was first cited by People Daily by Evans Maritim
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