By Kennedy Buhere
Junior School (JS) teachers are increasingly calling on the government to grant the Junior School level full autonomy, separating it from both primary and secondary education. Last week, they took this demand directly to the President at State House Girls, urging him to make Junior School an independent level of education.
According to press reports, the President appeared sympathetic. “Almost 80 per cent of the teachers I have hired are in Junior School. The problem is that you are reporting to the headteachers of primary schools. I see the quagmire you are pushing me into, but I think you have a point,” he was quoted as saying.
However, JS teachers are not the first to interrogate the appropriateness—or otherwise—of establishing a standalone authority to manage Junior School education.
The Ministry of Education previously considered this possibility following recommendations by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), chaired by Prof. Raphael Munavu. Among its proposals was the idea that Grades 7, 8 and 9 be domiciled within the primary education level but rebranded as Junior School. Under this model, Early Childhood Development, Primary and Junior School would collectively form a Comprehensive School.
During public hearings held across the country, stakeholders raised two major concerns about placing Grade 7 learners in secondary schools—an emphasis that is deliberate.
First was the inadequate capacity of secondary schools to accommodate both the 2022 Grade Six cohort and KCPE candidates. Infrastructure gaps—classrooms, laboratories, sanitation facilities, hostels and play areas—meant secondary schools could not reasonably absorb the two groups simultaneously.
Second were serious child-protection concerns. Parents and educationists feared for the safety and psychosocial wellbeing of 12- and 13-year-olds sharing spaces with much older teenagers, including the risk of bullying and exposure to inappropriate behaviour.
PWPER took these concerns seriously. In its first interim report to the President, it recommended that Grade 7 be domiciled in primary schools. However, it also proposed that Grades 8 and 9 follow the same path—a recommendation that created a new and complex policy dilemma.
To their credit, technocrats at the Ministry of Education explored the idea of creating a distinct Junior School governance structure operating within the same physical space as primary schools. They ultimately rejected the idea, correctly anticipating inevitable conflicts between primary school leadership and any newly created JS authority.
Their concerns were informed by real experience. Where primary and secondary schools share facilities—gates, ablution blocks, playgrounds and other amenities—conflicts over control and access are common. Replicating this arrangement within primary schools would almost certainly have escalated disputes. It would also have imposed significant additional costs on the government.
The Ministry therefore settled on the current structure.
What was not anticipated, however, were the turf wars that have since emerged between primary school teachers and their Junior School counterparts—conflicts that are now undermining teaching and learning.
To understand why this is so damaging, one must appreciate the policy rationale behind Junior School, arguably the most critical phase of the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system.
The three years designated as Junior School coincide with a crucial developmental stage. Learners are entering puberty—a period marked by rapid physical growth, emotional volatility, anxiety and deep self-questioning. It is a time when young people are forming identity, values and worldviews.
Academically, the curriculum at this stage must be more demanding than the upper primary levels under the former 8-4-4 system. From Grade 6 onwards, learning should be increasingly rigorous, coherent and sequential—designed to stretch critical thinking in line with learners’ developmental needs.
The hostility between primary and Junior School teachers is therefore not a trivial administrative issue. It is actively compromising the pedagogical rigour and calm professional environment required to deliver this curriculum effectively.
As the proverb goes, when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
So, what should be done?
In my view, the reservations initially held by the Ministry of Education regarding a fully autonomous Junior School system remain valid.
First, such a system would be expensive and not cost-effective.
Second, autonomy would not resolve the core problem. Conflicts over shared infrastructure—playgrounds, laboratories, co-curricular spaces—would persist.
The only way autonomy would truly work is if Junior Schools were physically separated from primary schools. That would require acquiring land and building infrastructure for more than 20,000 schools—an unrealistic proposition.
A more practical compromise is possible.
The government could reduce the administrative burden on primary school headteachers by considering the domiciling of Grades 8 and 9 in secondary schools, while retaining Grade 7 within primary schools. Primary teachers can be retooled to deliver Grade 7 content—education experts agree they already possess the foundational training to do so.
Alternatively, Grade 9 alone could be domiciled in secondary schools.
Either option would allow the system to optimise existing secondary school resources—modern classrooms, laboratories, playgrounds and highly experienced graduate teachers. Learners at this developmental stage would benefit from exposure to educators with deeper subject mastery and broader experiential knowledge.
Junior School teachers could be redeployed to secondary schools alongside their learners.
If this proposal is considered viable, several policy questions arise. Why not conduct placement assessments at Grade 8 to transition learners into Grade 9 domiciled in secondary schools? If both Grades 8 and 9 were moved, why not introduce phased placement assessments to manage the transition?
Ultimately, what matters most is not where Grades 7, 8 and 9 are taught, but how well the curriculum is delivered.
There is also a need for professional reorientation. Reporting structures do not require academic parity. In the 1970s and 1980s, graduate teachers often served under diploma-holding headteachers, and the system functioned. The sky did not fall.
Education policy, like all policy, must remain adaptive. As Phil McGraw aptly put it: “Sometimes you make the right decision. Sometimes you make the right decision.”
Kennedy Buhere
Communication Specialist
