Senior officials from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) were forced to return to the drawing board after failing to present comprehensive data on registered teachers aged 45 years and above who remain unemployed by the Commission.
This occurred during a tense session with the National Assembly’s Education Committee, where lawmakers demanded a detailed, county-by-county breakdown of these teachers.
The session, convened to address growing concerns that the TSC is sidelining a significant pool of experienced and qualified teachers over the age of 45, quickly turned combative as MPs voiced frustration over what they described as the Commission’s “inadequate and vague” submissions.
According to TSC Acting CEO Evaleen Mitei, as of June 2025, there are 39,017 teachers aged 45 and above who are registered but not employed by the Commission. However, she admitted that the Commission could only account for the county and sub-county of residence for 2,837 of them, as the remaining 36,180 did not provide such geographical details during registration.
“The registration process is fully automated, and while teachers provide personal details, they are not required to indicate their year of graduation or geographical information such as county and sub-county,” Ms Mitei told the National Assembly’s Committee on Education.
She added that the absence of this data made it difficult for the Commission to analyse the distribution of these teachers across the 47 counties, but MPs were not convinced.
Education Committee Chairman Julius Melly dismissed the TSC’s explanation, saying the Commission had access to national identification records that indicate a person’s place of origin.
Chairperson of the National Assembly Committee on Education Julius Kibiwot Melly.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
“Any public officer applying for a TSC job has an ID card which clearly indicates their location of origin, so actually, you do have this information,” he said.
He directed the Commission to submit, within two weeks, a detailed and disaggregated list of all unemployed teachers aged 45 and above, broken down by county and sub-county. “We shall not present this on the floor of the House with such an irregularity, because how do we assist you in budget matters if we do not have a clear picture of your recruitment needs?” posed Mr Melly.
He reminded officials that most of today’s counties are former districts, and thus it should not be difficult to trace geographical data, even for those registered before the advent of counties in 2010.
Teachers Service Commission’s Legal Director, Cavin Ayuor.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
TSC’s Legal Director, Cavin Ayuor, cited limitations within the legal framework governing teacher registration, noting that the Teachers Register, created under Section 23 of the TSC Act, does not require county or sub-county information.
“When the law was drafted, it did not mandate us to collect county-specific data. We have combed through the register but are unable to retrieve that level of detail for the 39,017 teachers. However, for the 1,264 aged teachers who applied for recruitment in the 2024/25 financial year, we do have sub-county data,” Mr Ayuor said.
Of the 1,264 applications from teachers aged 45 and above received during the last recruitment cycle, the Commission hired 516 aged between 45 and 59 years.
This renewed push for accountability comes in the wake of mounting concerns that the TSC is sidelining experienced teachers due to age.
A 2019 ruling by the Employment and Labour Relations Court deemed the Commission’s age-based hiring restrictions discriminatory.
