The Ministry of Education is planning to ask 46,000 teachers who currently work as interns under the Teachers Service Commission to apply afresh for permanent and pensionable terms.

This is according to Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba. According to Ogamba, the TSC will conduct their evaluation up to December, and the selected intern teachers will be confirmed in January 2025.

“The [Teachers Service Commission] will subject the said teachers to a competitive process in accordance with the Constitution and all the relevant laws. Candidates will be confirmed in their positions effective January 1, 2025, as per the approved budgetary allocation timelines,” CS Ogamba said when he appeared before the National Parliament Committee on Education.

The move has however been opposed by the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT). “When you are an intern, you are converted to permanent and pensionable terms. But when you are seeking a new job that is when you apply for consideration,” said KNUT secretary general Collins Oyuu.

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Intern teachers have been getting salary tokens that are way below the basic salaries and allowances paid to teachers who have been employed by the TSC under permanent and pensionable terms.

An intern teacher working at a secondary school currently earns Sh. 20,000 gross pay while a teacher teaching at a primary level earns Sh. 15,000 gross every month. These salaries are then deducted to the range of about Sh. 17,000 and Sh. 13,000 respectively each month.