Junior Secondary School teachers hold a protest match along the streets of Kakamega town on Tuesday last week calling for interns to be employed on permanent and pensionable terms.
The government is once again on the spot over the fate of 20,000 intern teachers serving in Junior Secondary Schools across the country.
Barely a week after Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi assured the public that all intern teachers would be converted to permanent and pensionable (PnP) terms by January 2026, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba issued a statement casting doubt on the plan.
Mr Mbadi said the government had already budgeted funds for the conversion and would also hire 4,000 new teachers at the start of the year.
“President William Ruto pledged that the government would confirm the intern teachers by January. There are funds budgeted for the conversion,” said Mr Mbadi.
But Mr Ogamba hinted at extending the contracts due to a lack of funds.
“There is a programme for interns whose contracts are ending in December 2025. Unless we get more resources from the National Treasury to confirm them, one of the options is to extend their contracts,” he told MPs this week.
His remarks prompted Speaker Moses Wetang’ula to lament that his phone had been “bursting with messages” from worried teachers desperate for clarity about their fate.
The intern teachers, earning less than Sh18,000 after deductions, have worked for nearly a year under temporary contracts, performing the same duties as permanent colleagues but earning a fraction of the pay.
Kenya Junior School Teachers Association (KEJUSTA) chairperson James Odhiambo, himself a former intern, said the government must speak with one voice on the fate of the 20,000 teachers.
“Who should we trust in this government? We are getting mixed signals. CS Ogamba says there’s no money; CS Mbadi says there is. These interns have been performing the same duties as permanent teachers but earning far less without allowances,” said Mr Odhiambo.
He said the Labour and Relations Court had declared the internship illegal, adding that the State should scrap the programme altogether.
Confirming the interns, he added, would boost morale and stabilise the Junior School subsector, which faces acute staffing shortages.
Mr Odhiambo urged the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to replace the current model with a structured teaching practice internship instead of “modern-day slavery.”
The KEJUSTA official, who teaches in Kwale County, was among the first cohort of Junior School interns recruited on February 28, 2023, and later confirmed to PnP terms on January 1, 2025, after months of protests, legal battles and union pressure.
“We were the first batch of interns. We served for two years, demonstrated and went to court before being confirmed,” he recalled. “When a teacher is demoralised, the effect shifts to the learner. If the government wants Junior School learners to continue receiving quality education, it must confirm our colleagues without delay.”
This, as TSC estimates that Junior Schools face a shortfall of 72,000 teachers, despite hiring 56,000 on PnP terms and 20,000 interns since 2022.
Currently, 83,129 teachers serve millions of learners in Grades 7, 8 and 9.
To bridge the gap, the government allocated Sh2 billion to recruit 24,000 more interns by January 2026, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects where shortages are most acute.
Critics, however, say the focus on internships is a quick fix for a structural problem that needs sustained investment in long-term employment.
Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) Deputy Education Director Cornelius Oduor argued that the government’s reliance on internships is both unsustainable and unlawful.
“The courts were very clear that employing teachers as interns is illegal. These are qualified, registered teachers — not learners. Engaging them as interns perpetuates an illegality,” said Mr Oduor.
He warned that contradictions between the two ministries have real fiscal and social implications.
“This empty rhetoric from state officers shows that they make pronouncements without matching them with budgetary allocations. When it comes to implementation, they struggle to fulfil what they’ve promised,” he said.
He added that the confusion could force parents to bear the cost of understaffing as education quality declines and private tuition costs rise.
This is not the first time intern teachers have faced such uncertainty. The first batch, engaged two years ago, were only confirmed after court intervention, protests and union pressure led by Knut and Kuppet.
The current situation mirrors that struggle and raises fears that history could repeat itself.
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