The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has differed with their Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) counterparts over the ongoing push and pull on the positions of Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) teachers.
This follows weeks of JSS teachers calling for autonomy, demanding to be separated from the primary schools that are now referred to as comprehensive schools.
Speaking on Monday during KNUT's Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Garissa, the union's women national chair, Mercy Kiambati, claimed that the JSS teachers were being misled by their union to sow discord, as everything had been working swimmingly since the implementation of the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system.
"We are advising our JSS teachers not to listen to the advice of those who are misleading them because this is an already done story. They are domiciled in primary school and have worked very well with the head teachers in the past three years," she said.
"Their autonomy will not work, and we are condemning those who are inciting the JSS teachers."
Elsewhere, KNUT Trans Nzoia secretary George Wanjala argued that several entities, including the two unions, had conducted nationwide inspections before deciding that JSS should be placed in comprehensive schools.
He explained that the decision to place grades seven to nine students in comprehensive schools instead of in senior school was foremost because of their young ages, ranging between 11 and 12 years.
He claimed that due to their ages, they would not acclimate to high school life properly and that only Primary School teachers understood the psychology of such students.
"It was important for them to remain in Primary Schools so that they could be brought up well by teachers who understood them better, as they have been trained to teach them," he stated.
Additionally, Wanjala cited the already existing infrastructure in Primary schools due to the extra standard seven and standard eight that were sufficient to accommodate the three new grades.
He further highlighted that the implementation of the CBC was an expensive endeavour, and thus, building all the new infrastructure and acquiring all the materials needed for the new system.
For weeks now, different branches of the JSS across the country have been calling for independence from the primary schools they are domiciled in, citing the difference in the curricula of the primary and the junior secondary levels.
While speaking during World Teachers Day on Sunday, October 5, Akelo Misori, the Secretary-General of KUPPET, said plans to resolve the standoff are ongoing. He however did not provide a timeline for the brewing dispute.
