The Kisii County Education Director, Mr Pius Ngoma, has told off those pushing for the scrapping of boarding schools, stating that it was not the best solution to schools’ unrest.
Speaking to KNA in his office in Kisii town, Kisii County, Mr Ngoma said the abolition of boarding schools will disrupt students who are enrolled from different counties.
He noted that boarding schools were friendly to parents and guardians who travel from one region to another in search of a living. Ngoma said the boarding schools were the best alternative to retain learners in school for continuity reasons instead of occasionally transferring them to different schools.
“Will it be right for students whose parents are civil servants to be transferred from one school to another when parents are transferred?” wondered Ngoma.
He said boarding schools help build a cohesive nation as children from diverse backgrounds meet in schools and learn about different cultures.
The Country has seen an increasing debate from different quarters concerning whether to scrap or retain boarding school in the wake of school unrests that has led to the torching of dormitories.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion has been pushing for the abolishment of boarding schools as a way of controlling school unrests.
Sossion believes that corporal punishment will not work on teenagers who have been exposed to different environments during the 9-month covid-19 break.
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) taskforce also wants boarding in secondary schools to be removed under the new 2-6-3-3-3 education system.
The team furthers that boarding schools be left for several institutions to admit learners across the nation who pursue different pathways in senior secondary.
The team is also proposing the scrapping of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination after the 6th year.
