The Ministry of Education has now set official school hours for public and private day schools to between 8.00 am and 3.30 pm for class hours and 3.30 pm to 4.45 pm for co-curricular activities.
These are among the provisions of The Basic Education Regulations, 2014, drafted by the ministry for discussion and adoption in the Basic Education Act 2013.
The draft also provides that students be allowed to engage in self-directed activities between 5.00pm and 9.30pm as opposed to doing homework. Additionally, the period between 9.30pm to 6.00am be will be for rest, while the period between 6.00am and 8.00am just before official class work has been set aside for supervised routine activities.
These rules, the ministry says, are aimed at enabling learners to play and curtail confining them to classwork throughout the day.
"It is also meant to ensure teachers use official teaching hours to teach, instead of malingering only to take up time students need to play or direct their own learning activities, to teach off hours and demand that parents pay for the extra tuition they are providing outside official teaching hours," the ministry said in a statement.
To ensure proper utilization of the official class hours the suggested directive outlaws learners from waking up earlier than 6.00 am in boarding schools. It also forbids day schools from forcing learners to report to school earlier than 7.15 am.
Education Stakeholders held a workshop, chaired by the Acting Education Secretary, Leah Rotich, at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to discuss the proposed regulations.
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