The country is facing an unprecedented crisis in the education sector with over 400,000 teachers being jobless currently, according to records from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

Worse still, the teaching profession is facing a serious shortage of science subject teachers, with majority of the tutors majoring in Arts, TSC revealed.

TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia regretted that currently, most of the teachers being churned out of universities and Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs) are only trained in arts subjects.

“Majority of the teachers coming from the universities and colleges are on arts subjects. Even when we advertise for jobs, we never get the responses for science subjects. Yes, there is a crisis of science teachers and I have never shied away and I have never run away from that,” she said.

Macharia who appeared before the MPs who sit in the education committee chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly also disclosed that a majority of the 46,000 Junior Secondary School (JSS) teachers they recently employed on permanent and pensionable terms teach Arts.

She shocked the MPs when she revealed that whereas the teachers’ employer only advertised vacancies for 46,000 teachers, it received a record 314,117 applications.

Out of the 314,117 applications, 93,646 applications were for primary school teachers against 6,000 vacancies.

Another 144,177 applications were for Junior Schools yet TSC could only absorb 39,550. The teachers’ employer could also only absorb 450 teachers from 76,294 applications for secondary schools teaching jobs, she revealed.

“The commission received a budget of Sh13.4 billion to convert the 46,000 serving interns into Permanent and Pensionable terms of Services with effect from January 1, 2025. The 13.4 billion translates to a six-months budget,” she explained and added that  following the closure of the application window, the commission vetted the applications and issued interns with employment forms.

Macharia who was accompanied by top officials from the commission, also announced that they will be promoting about 6,000 teachers as the commission has been allocated Sh1 billion in the 2024/2025 financial year.

“This money will help us promote about 6,000 teachers yet we have a huge number of them on acting basis,” she explained.

Ticking time-bomb

While assuring the concerned teachers that they would be given priority in recruitment, she also disclosed that they will recruit more intern teachers by January 2025.

Her response immediately attracted the attention of the lawmakers who demanded to know the criteria the commission used to absorb the 46,000 teachers. The MPs also sought to know why there was a huge number of unemployed teachers and the efforts the commission has put in place to address the shortage of the science teachers.

“The schools, especially JSS, are poorly staffed. The commission has gone against the rules of staffing. Some subjects have excess staff while others have no teachers,” the committee chairman said.

“The issue of science teachers is of concern to us and the committee should take up this matter seriously,” Marakwet East MP Timothy Kipchumba said, terming the increased number of unemployed teachers as a ticking time bomb.

Medical cover

Kasipul Kabondo MP Eve Obara said  the reality on the ground is that Arts teachers are teaching science subjects.

“How they do it is that they study the subject at night and then go to class in the morning to teach children. These are some of the issues that we must deal with,” she told the committe..

Igembe North MP Julius Taitumu said there was the need to provide incentives for science teachers to encourage the uptake of the related courses.

 While addressing the issue of teachers’ medical cover, Macharia said the commission requires Sh11 billion to enable it to provide adequate insurance.

“We have just come from a strike situation. We don’t have money for medical insurance…we are lacking Sh11 billion. It will be very bad when teachers go on strike again,” she told the commitee.

On the level of preparedness to Grade 9 under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), she said that TSC recruited a total of 48,550 teachers for JSS in the financial years 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, deployed 8,378 qualified primary schools’ teachers to JSS, raising the number of JSS teachers to 56,828.