- Meli appealed to the Junior Secondary School teachers to stop their weekly demonstration and instead go back to class and teach as their concerns were being addressed.
Image: Barry Salil
The government plans to put 26,000 JSS intern teachers on permanent and pensionable status in the next financial year starting from June 2024.
Parliamentary Education Committee chairman Julius Meli disclosed that the intern JSS teachers currently hired on contract will be absorbed by TSC as funds have been allocated by Parliament.
Meli appealed to the Junior Secondary School teachers to stop their weekly demonstration and instead go back to class and teach as their concerns were being addressed.
“Parliament has allocated TSC with a kitty to hire 26,000 JSS interns on a permanent basis, the remaining would be absorbed in the subsequent years, hence we need them to be patient,” Meli said.
The legislator revealed that his committee yielded to the National Treasury’s explanation of why they could not absorb the entire JSS interns due to financial constraints.
Meli spoke at ACK DL St Marks Preparatory School during an inter-denominational service and choir competition in Nandi East presided over by Bishop Emeritus Jackson Kosgei who is also a nominated senator.
Meli added that a new group of 20,000 JSS intern tutors will be hired on a one-year contract as soon as the 26,000 are employed to help cover the huge teacher deficit currently in Kenyan schools.
"The government through the Public Service Commission will also hire 2,000 TVET trainers in the coming financial year," Meli said.
“The country currently has a shortfall of 116,000 teachers and the government is committed to ensure that pressure on parents is eased through contracting as they wait to be absorbed,” the MP said.
The MP said the Kenya Kwanza administration was spending Sh 1.1 trillion in revenues to service debts incurred by the previous administration.