TSC to hire 36,000 Teachers this year

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) plans to hire 36,000 teachers by December, with 18,000 of them serving as interns and the other 18,000 as permanent, pensionable staff. This information was shared by Hon. Julius Melly, the Tinderet Member of Parliament and Chairperson of the National Assembly’s Committee on Education.

Melly has requested approval for a proposed budget ceiling of Kshs. 382.3 billion for the TSC in the 2025/2026 Budget Policy Statement (BPS). During a meeting with the Liaison Committee, led by Hon. Gladys Boss from Uasin Gishu, Melly stressed that this funding would allow the TSC to recruit 18,000 intern teachers, hire 18,000 permanent secondary school teachers, and promote 20,000 teachers.

He noted that these recruitments and promotions would help fill gaps in teaching resources and enhance career progression for teachers. Additionally, he pointed out significant funding shortages in the education sector, urging the Committee to allocate extra resources, including Kshs. 6.3 billion for Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) for university staff, Kshs. 20.9 billion for scholarships and loans for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students, and Kshs. 890 million for constructing TVET institutions in areas lacking such facilities.

In January, Grade 9 students will transition to senior school, and this recruitment effort by the TSC is aimed at ensuring sufficient staffing for that transition. This mass hiring is intended to help alleviate the unemployment crisis within the teaching profession, as approximately 354,234 teachers with various qualifications are still awaiting employment by the TSC.

The TSC has already initiated a replacement process for 8,707 teaching positions advertised in November of the previous year. This replacement effort includes 5,862 posts for primary schools, 21 for junior schools, and 2,824 for secondary schools, all on permanent and pensionable terms. The Commission has begun issuing appointment letters to successful candidates, with 1,645 junior secondary school (JSS) intern teachers already securing replacement positions in secondary schools.

The TSC is also working on replacing JSS intern teachers, part of the 20,000 who were recruited and assigned to schools in January. Currently, there are 76,928 teachers employed in junior secondary to teach Grades 7, 8, and 9 since 2022. TSC CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia stated that the Commission needs a total of 149,350 teachers to adequately staff these three JSS grades, with the 76,928 currently employed including 39,550 JSS teachers confirmed in permanent and pensionable roles as of January 2025.

A total of 8,378 P1 teachers have been assigned to junior secondary schools over the past two years, alongside 9,000 junior secondary teachers who have been hired on permanent and pensionable contracts. Additionally, 20,000 JSS intern teachers were recruited in January this year at a cost of 4.8 billion shillings.

The recruitment of these 20,000 intern teachers focused on candidates with science backgrounds, as many junior secondary schools were found to be lacking in science and technical subject teachers.

Macharia reported that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has retrained 229,292 teachers on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) and Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) since April 2019. From May 2023 to November 2024, 60,642 JSS teachers have undergone this retraining.

To help alleviate the teacher shortage, TSC plans to assign primary school teachers to junior secondary schools starting in April this year. The online application process for deploying 6,000 P1 teachers to JSS is currently underway.

The Commission has been deploying P1 teachers since 2019 as a promotion in response to numerous complaints from primary school teachers who have upgraded their academic qualifications. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, 1,000 P1 teachers were deployed each year to secondary schools, while from 2022 to 2024, approximately 8,378 teachers were assigned to support the initial cohorts of the CBC in JSS.

Recently, officials from the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) urged TSC to reconsider its strict academic requirements for deploying P1 teachers to JSS in the interest of students. They suggested that TSC should retrain PTE teachers and permit them to teach Grade 7, 8, and 9 students.

In the deployment process, TSC requires practicing P1 teachers to hold a degree in secondary education with at least a C+ in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and a minimum of C+ in two teaching subjects. The Commission has faced criticism for neglecting P1 teachers who are well-qualified to teach subjects like Music, Art and Craft, and Physical Education, which are currently challenging for JSS teachers. The deployment of the 6,000 primary school teachers will be determined based on subject combinations, commonly referred to as subject clusters.