What’s the fate of intern teachers?

Since the beginning of the year a lonely voice has been crying in the wilderness without being accorded the attention it deserves.

And with their voices becoming louder and stronger with each passing day, the more than 21, 000 intern teachers employed in December in 2022 are now threatening to disrupt learning when schools reopen next week.

At the centre of the standoff between the teachers and Teachers Service Commission is the latter’s failure to absorb the interns on permanent and pensionable terms.

The teachers were posted in at least 23,000 public Junior Secondary Schools  on a one-year contract with the promise of being employed. They have accused the government of not only reneging on its pledge to employ them permanently, but also overworking them while on low pay.

Other pressing issues the intern teachers are pushing to be addressed include poor working conditions and tax burden on their meagre salaries. They are of the opinion that the government should consider providing them with permanent positions or increasing their allowances, especially in light of the current prevailing difficult economic conditions.

Their threats come only days after President William Ruto hinted that the government would in future only employ individuals on permanent and pensionable terms, those who would have served for two terms as interns.

Interestingly enough, when TSC increased teachers’ salaries last year, the interns were not included and yet the government was very fast in including them in the new tax regime that includes the housing levy, NSSF and NHIF, among others.

But despite all the lofty promises made by the President Ruto government on reforms in the education sector, the employment of teachers is turning out into a farce with both the Ministry of Education and TSC having closed their ears on them. Several key questions remain unanswered by the authorities over the intern teachers’ plight.

 From the foregoing, the government needs to come up with clearly stipulated guidelines on the employment of interns in schools, addressing their salaries, social welfare, security and tenure.

Above all, the government needs to assure the teachers whose contract expired in December about their fate.

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