NAIROBI, Kenya – A crippling funding shortfall has dashed hopes for more than 20,000 intern teachers who were expecting to transition into permanent roles within the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) this year.
Despite their recruitment during the current financial year, the interns now face a prolonged wait following revelations that the Commission is operating under a Sh3.5 billion deficit an amount that has effectively stalled any efforts to confirm their employment status.
This disclosure was made before the National Assembly Education Committee, igniting heated debate as lawmakers questioned the future of thousands of young educators who had anticipated their internships would lead to secure, pensionable government jobs.
Appearing before the committee, TSC’s Director of Finance, Cheptumo Ayabei, acknowledged the Commission’s financial difficulties and admitted that it is currently unable to absorb the intern teachers into the system.
He explained that although there are plans to confirm the teachers, they will have to remain in their intern roles for an extended period potentially up to two more years until funding becomes available or fresh instructions are issued.
“As we speak that funding has not been provided so these teachers will continue to serve for the next two years or otherwise advised so there’s provision to recruit these teachers but we are going to recruit 20,000 teachers this year,” said Ayabei.
The issue is further complicated by a court ruling that requires the confirmation of intern teachers within one year.
However, Ayabei stated that under current financial constraints, the Commission’s best-case scenario would be to meet this requirement by December 2025, within the 2025/2026 financial year.
“I know there’s a court ruling and the best we have now is a maximum of one year, we need to confirm the existing intern teacher by December which is within the financial year 2025/2026,” he added.
This stance drew sharp criticism from members of Parliament, particularly Baringo North MP Benjamin Makilap, who questioned the logic behind initiating the recruitment of a new batch of interns while a significant backlog remains unresolved.
He challenged the TSC on the transparency and feasibility of its recruitment timelines.
“When you were recruiting the teachers was it one year or two years because you can’t bring before us a budget that you want to recruit new intern teachers yet there’s a backlog,” said Makilap.
The committee spotlighted what MPs described as systemic age bias in teacher recruitment.
Legislators expressed concern over the continued exclusion of qualified teachers above 45 years of age, many of whom have remained unemployed for decades and are nearing retirement without ever securing public sector employment.
Teso South MP Mary Emase was among those who called for an age-sensitive hiring policy.
She urged the TSC to consider affirmative action to support older, trained teachers who have consistently been left behind in national recruitment drives.
“I don’t know if there’s an affirmative action to recruit teachers who are over 45 years of age and they haven’t been absorbed even as interns because these are teachers who have been trained and are already approaching retirement age and have not been employed,” said Emase.
Her sentiments were echoed by Education Committee Chair Julius Melly, who warned against institutional discrimination based on age.
Melly emphasized that older teachers, despite their age, still carry valuable experience and often shoulder the burden of supporting families, making their inclusion in recruitment a matter of urgency and social justice.
“We have a lot of aging teachers’ population who haven’t been recruited into the system and many of them have family responsibilities. You can’t say that you will not recruit a teacher aged 45 years just because of his age, any teacher can be recruited up to 2 years of recruitment,” noted Melly.
MPs proposed a more strategic and data-informed recruitment model that considers age as a key parameter.
Luanda MP Dick Maungu urged the Commission to prioritize those above 45, arguing that this demographic had been systematically marginalized.
“Why don’t you do a target recruitment based on age, if an individual is above 45 years, it will be easier you will morph them up… These aged teachers are actually Kenyans and they are perishing, we can actually set the minimum age of recruitment so that we conclusively deal with this matter,” said Maungu.
Makilap further pushed for accountability and transparency, calling on the TSC to release accurate data on the number of registered teachers.
He maintained that such data was essential to understanding the actual demand and funding needs for a comprehensive recruitment exercise.
“The TSC should give us data of registered teachers with registration certificate by TSC so that we can quantify the numbers and know the amount of resources that will be required to recruit these teachers,” stated Makilap.
Ayabei reaffirmed that the conversion of intern teachers into permanent roles remains a funding-dependent exercise.
He noted that although the Commission had engaged with the National Treasury to seek financial support for the process, no provision had been made due to the wider fiscal pressures facing the government.
“The conversion of teachers is all based on funding, if we get the funding, we convert them into permanent and pensionable. We did engage National Treasury and because of fiscal space and constraints, we were not given provision for conversion,” he affirmed.
Compounding the Commission’s financial woes is an additional funding gap of Sh5.71 billion, which threatens the provision of medical insurance for teachers and the renewal of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Director of Legal, Labour and Industrial Action Cavin Anyuor revealed that the National Treasury has yet to commit to a funding mechanism for the new CBA cycle, which is expected to begin in July 2025.
The current agreement lapses in June 2025, and negotiations for the next phase remain unresolved.
“The area which has not been funded is the CBA, although we are still negotiating the CBA, but we have written to the National Treasury to consider, because the CBA that we have is ending on 30th June 2025 and a new one should commence on first July,” Anyuor stated.
