The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has reported a pressing need for 25,839 educators to mitigate the staffing deficit in senior schools in anticipation of the Grade 10 implementation scheduled for the upcoming year.
During a parliamentary session, TSC Chief Executive Officer Dr. Nancy Macharia provided a sobering assessment of the challenges confronting the inaugural cohorts of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). She indicated that the overall teacher shortfall in both junior and senior secondary schools currently amounts to 98,261.
Dr. Macharia made these statements on April 8 while addressing the National Assembly’s Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee regarding inquiries related to teacher recruitment, promotions, and deployment nationwide.
She emphasized that the Commission requires a total of 72,422 teachers to adequately address the shortages in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS). In total, the TSC necessitates 149,350 teachers to effectively implement the CBC across Grades 7, 8, and 9. However, the Commission has been allocated a budget for the recruitment of an additional 36,000 teachers this year, with 18,000 positions designated for permanent and pensionable contracts and the remaining 18,000 for internship roles. These new hires are intended specifically to fill the staffing gaps in both junior and senior schools.
Currently, the TSC has employed 76,928 teachers in junior secondary, which constitutes 51.5% of the required workforce. This figure includes 39,550 junior secondary teachers who were initially recruited on internship contracts but were confirmed in permanent positions as of January 2025, alongside 8,378 P1 teachers assigned to JSS in 2023 and 2024, and 9,000 JSS teachers hired on permanent and pensionable terms. Additionally, the TSC recruited 20,000 JSS teachers in January on a one-year internship basis following the allocation of 4.8 billion shillings.
Since April 2019, the TSC has retrained a total of 229,292 teachers in the CBC and Competency-Based Assessment (CBA). Specifically, 60,642 JSS teachers have undergone retraining from May 2023 to November 2024.
The Commission is facing significant pressure to avert an impending teacher crisis in JSS, as the current teacher-to-class ratio stands at 1:1. Furthermore, the TSC is planning to retrain 7,000 secondary school principals in preparation for the Grade 10 rollout.
