NAIROBI, Kenya — In a major policy shift aimed at navigating a complex legal landscape, President William Ruto has announced that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will transition all teachers currently serving as interns into a new contractual framework.
The announcement was made during a national education conference in Naivasha, an event attended by top-tier officials including Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba and Treasury CS John Mbadi.
The move is seen as a strategic compromise to obey recent court orders while managing the country’s significant teacher shortage and fiscal constraints.
According to President Ruto, the decision follows a formal advisory from the TSC. Under the new arrangement:
Transition to Contract: Current intern teachers will move from “internship” status to formal “contracts” at the end of their current terms.
Automatic Permanent & Pensionable (P&P) Status: The President pledged that teachers will be converted to full P&P terms automatically after completing two years of service.
No More Interviews: In a win for educators, Ruto directed the TSC to bypass the traditional interview process for these confirmations, making the transition based purely on years of service.
The shift to contracts is a direct response to a stinging ruling by the Court of Appeal, which declared the TSC internship program illegal and discriminatory.
The court argued that “interns” are, in fact, fully trained and registered professionals who should be employed as such, noting that the term “intern” should legally apply only to trainee students.
While the Supreme Court later granted the TSC a reprieve by suspending the order pending a full hearing, the government appears keen on establishing a more legally robust employment model to avoid future litigation.
The scale of this transition is massive. Currently, the TSC has 44,000 teachers working as interns in Junior Schools:
The Timeline:
January 2027: The first 20,000 teachers (from the 2025 cohort) are scheduled for P&P confirmation.
Treasury CS John Mbadi confirmed that Sh 4.2 billion has already been set aside for this purpose.
November 2026: The TSC will launch a recruitment drive for 16,000 new teachers who will join directly under this new contractual arrangement.
Currently, intern teachers in Junior Schools earn a monthly stipend of Sh 20,000.
However, after statutory deductions—including the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), NSSF, and the Housing Levy—their take-home pay drops to approximately Sh 17,000.
For many, this remains a “starvation wage,” leading to ongoing protests across several counties where teachers are demanding immediate absorption into P&P terms rather than waiting for the two-year mark.
This is not the first time the TSC has experimented with non-permanent hiring.
In 2009/2010, the Commission introduced a similar contract program that paid primary teachers Sh 10,000 and secondary teachers Sh 15,000 net.
That move was met with fierce resistance from the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), then led by the then Lawrence Majali.
The current move to “contractual service” echoes that era, though the President’s promise of “automatic” confirmation is intended to soften the blow for today’s workforce.
The government is walking a tightrope. By moving from “internship” to “contract,” the TSC hopes to satisfy the courts’ demand for professional recognition while buying time for the Treasury to find the billions needed for full P&P benefits.
As the November recruitment nears, all eyes will be on whether this “contract” model provides the stability the education sector needs—or if it simply marks the next chapter in a long-running legal battle.
Do you think the “two-year rule” for automatic confirmation is a fair compromise, or should the TSC have moved everyone to permanent terms immediately?
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