Allowing learners to join Teachers Training Colleges with a mean grade of C plain in KCSE does not lower the standards required to teach primary school education curriculum, Education CS Ezekiel Machogu has said.
Machogu termed restrictive and punitive the entry requirements that required students to have scored Grade C in all subjects.
“Removal of the cluster requirements does not mean we are lowering the standards of teacher education and training,” Machogu said.
He said some of the Primary school teachers in the '70s and '80s had not attained the equivalent of C Plain in the Secondary School certification yet were excellent teachers.
He said the removal of the clusters had led enrolment of 12,000 prospective teachers into TTCs, saying the cluster requirements led to a steep decline in enrolment.
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“The teachers were more than the students, something that threatened the closure of TTCs,” Mr. Machogu said.
The Cabinet Secretary made the remarks when he officially opened Mandera Training College on Tuesday this week.
Present during the occasion were the Governor of Mandera County Mohamed Khalif, Mandera Senator Ali Roba, the Director General, Abdi Yusuf, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya, (NACONEK), Haroun Yusuf, local leaders among others.
Under the clustered requirements, applicants to TTCs need to have a mean grade of Plain and a score of C Plain in Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Humanities and Sciences.
Machogu said the Government will implement a recommendation by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) to the effect that recruitment into TTCs be pegged at C Plain without the clusters requirement.
He said the Mandera TTC had attracted only 23 students under the Cluster requirements but had now enrolled 668 students following the removal of the cluster requirements.
The 33 public Teacher Training Colleges had enrolled some 3,3,22 students under the cluster requirement but had since enrolled 18,670 students after the removal of the cluster requirements.
The Cabinet Secretary said that the government had come up with measures to prevent early exposure to the examinations in the forthcoming KCPE and KCSE examinations.
He said examinations will be picked from containers two times a day unlike in the past where they were picked once in the morning.
He said centre managers will pick the second paper to be done in the afternoon, to prevent possible early exposure of the second paper.
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