At least 30,000 teachers to be hired starting January - President Ruto

President William Ruto has said his government will employ over 30,000 teachers starting January next year to mitigate the nationwide teacher-student ratio gap.

Speaking on Wednesday in Embakasi, Nairobi County, Ruto said this will be the first phase of absorbing a planned 116,000 teachers.

A communiqué issued by State House also stated that President Ruto plans work with the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) to upgrade school infrastructure, as well as expanding the school feeding in a bid to boost enrolment and performance.

During the annual ‘World Teachers Day’ celebrations last week, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) CEO Dr Nancy Macharia announced the hiring and posting of 14,460 new teachers across the country.

This came following an allocation of Ksh.3.7 billion by the Treasury in April to address the shortage which has partly been attributed to the 100% transition policy by the government that seeks to ensure all students who complete their primary education are fully enrolled in secondary schools.

Dr. Macharia at the time said Treasury had allocated Ksh.2.5 billion to TSC for the recruitment of 5,000 permanent teachers, and Ksh.1.2 billion for the hiring of 6,000 of their intern counterparts.

TSC had previously acknowledged a severe teacher deficiency in both primary and secondary schools, revealing that it was short of 114,581 teachers.

“We thank the government for funding resources to allow us to recruit an average of 5,000 teachers annually for our public schools. However, we still have a shortage of 114,581 teachers in primary and post-primary institutions,” Dr. Macharia revealed during the release of the 2021 KCPE results in March.