Thousands of hopeful graduates and teachers eyeing promotions will have to wait longer, as the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) struggles with insufficient budget allocation. Appearing before the National Assembly’s Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee, TSC CEO Nancy Macharia revealed a looming staffing crisis that could undermine the rollout of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), especially at the Senior Secondary level.
The commission currently grapples with a shortage of 98,261 teachers—a number expected to rise by 2026. Despite an annual Ksh1 billion allocation for promotions, only 6,000 out of over 500,000 teachers benefit, leaving many demoralized.
Lawmakers also raised alarms over regional disparities in teacher deployment, with areas like Kakamega cited as under-resourced. TSC, however, insists its staffing follows legal frameworks tied to curriculum demands and national norms.
The crisis is compounded by a wave of new public schools opening without proportional recruitment budgets, a scarcity of CBC-trained teachers, and challenges in hardship-prone regions.