Kenyan teachers do not understand curriculum - report

About 20 per cent of teachers in Kenyan public primary schools do not teach at any given time when they are required to do so.

The Global Monitoring Report — Education for All 2000-2015 report indicates that more than 40,000 of the 200,000 primary school teachers abscond classes.

The report reveals that some teachers do not understand the curricula due to lack of support from the government and other training institutions.

The document, which was released yesterday, shows that teacher absenteeism was affecting the quality of education as it was reducing the number of hours children were being taught.

The report is based on an independent survey commissioned by Unesco on behalf of the international community. It involved agencies and governments.

The report states that contract teachers tend to be very effective where parental or community involvement is greater.

It says the positive effects of hiring contract teachers were observed only in communities where parents were trained to monitor staff absenteeism.

They were also noted when relatives of local civil service teachers were not hired as contract teachers.

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The report indicates that Kenya, lost Sh4 billion, which was meant to fund education, due to corruption.
“While Kenya has made education free, there is some indication of corruption regarding capitation grants,” says the report.

The document comes in the wake of another report that was released late last year that also indicated that 13 per cent of teachers in the country were not reporting for duty.

The Kenya Economic Report 2014 had also shown that many teachers struggle to teach core foundational reading and mathematical skills in schools.

The Education for All 2000-2015 report states that the proportion of children in Kenya reaching the end of primary school increased from 42 per cent in 2000 to 62 per cent in 2007. At the same time, learning outcomes for children from both poor and rich households improved.

“This may have been facilitated by programmes helping teachers adopt effective pedagogic approaches that ran from 2001 to 2006 for 41,000 primary school teachers,” says the report.

It attributes the increase to three key resource teachers from every school who were trained to lead professional development in their subject. Head teachers had received materials to support the key resource teachers in providing training.
“Follow-up evaluations indicated positive changes in classroom interactions. Lesson observations in grades 3 and 6 showed that 34 per cent of teachers in 2005 used paired and group work, compared to 3 per cent in 1999.
“Also, a greater range of arrangements was used to alter classroom layouts to meet the requirements of various kinds of learning tasks,” adds the report.