Ruto changes Tune on Promise to Employ 116,000 Teachers.
Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu said that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) would only hire 30,000 teachers in January 2023 instead of the 58,000 teachers expected to be hired to fill the staffing shortage in public schools.
During his campaign, President William Ruto promised to hire 116,000 teachers out of work in his first year in office.
“We know that this coming year, we have promised 116,000 teachers, but because of the nature of the economy, we are going to do it progressively.
“So this coming January, we are going to recruit 30,000 teachers and will improve thereafter,” Machogu told principals at an event in Kisii School on Thursday, November 17.
Because the economy was deteriorating, CS Machogu stated that the President’s promises could not be kept all at once.
“The remainder of the 116,000 promised by President William Ruto during the election campaigns has been pushed forward due to the current economic situation,” the CS stated.
Machogu thinks that the new teachers will significantly help with the teacher shortage since the sixth-graders will soon move on to junior high school.
“As we open schools in January 2023, our children who are doing their CBC exams will know whether they will be hosted in primary or secondary school following instructions from the President,” the CS detailed.
On October 5, World Teachers Day, the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) urged Ruto to make good on his promise to hire more than 58,000 teachers.
Before the General Election, the President had vowed to spend Ksh25 billion annually on transferring and recruiting additional teachers and implementing ongoing teacher training.
On June 23, 2022, Ruto met with education stakeholders and signed a charter in which he pledged to make significant improvements in the sector to reduce the national teacher-student ratio gap.
The President’s Education Charter pledged to fill the gap of 116,000 instructors in public schools within the first two fiscal years by hiring 58,000 trained but unemployed teachers yearly.
TSC had previously criticized a severe teacher shortage in elementary and secondary schools, claiming it lacked 114,581 educators.
