Senate Urges Government Clarity on Fate of ECDE and P1 Teachers’ Certificates
The government is under pressure from the Senate to clarify the situation regarding teachers holding Primary Teachers Education Certificate (P1) and Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) Certificates, following the recent Ministry of Education’s guidelines mandating a minimum qualification of a diploma for both ECDE and primary education teachers.
Embu senator Munyi Mundigi, in a request to the Standing Committee on Education, emphasised the need for the government to provide guidance on the status and future of the affected teachers.
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He asked for information on the number of teachers currently employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and county governments who hold P1 and ECDE certificates.
Additionally, he sought clarity on the timelines for the proposed upgrading program aimed at enabling underqualified teachers to obtain the necessary diploma qualifications in accordance with the Ministry of Education’s guidelines.
Mundigi further demanded information on the fate of the Blended Upgrading Programme, which was initially outlined in a Ministry circular and was supposed to resume after the normalisation of the school calendar following disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moreover, Mundigi urged the government to outline interventions to assist TSC teachers who have not had the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications to a diploma level, especially in light of the failure to resume the Blended Upgrading Programme.
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A task force had previously recommended mandatory training for both P1 and ECDE teachers, starting in October 2021. At the conclusion of the training, the participants were awarded a diploma certificate.
The upgrading programme consists of four modules for DPTE (Diploma Elementary Teacher Education) and five modules for DECTE (Diploma Early Childhood Teacher Education), each with a full duration for coursework and practice. Graduates of the program are qualified to teach all subjects within their area of training.
The total number of content and academic hours in the upgrade programmes is 786 hours for DPTE and 1176 hours for DECTE. In the ECDE upgrade, participants cover all teaching areas in DECTE with more hours than in the PTE upgrade, but both have 300 hours of teaching practice. However, P1 teachers focus solely on subjects they didn’t study in college.
Senate Urges Government Clarity on Fate of ECDE and P1 Teachers’ Certificates
