The Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) John Mbadi has clarified on state of confirmation of 46,000 intern teachers after a series of castigations for contradicting government position.
On Thursday Mbadi had thrown into panic thousands of intern teachers after he said that the government does not have funds to confirm them to permanent and pensionable (pnp) terms.
Mbadi further said that the government lacks resources to recruit another 20,000 teachers on intership as was required by Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
“We don’t have resources for recruiting JSS teachers on permanent and pensionable terms, and we do not have the resources for the additional 20,000 JSS teachers that was reduced in the estimates,” Mbadi said during an interview at Citizen TV.
“There is a shortfall of about Sh13 billion. There is no money available for the conversation of JSS teachers unless we make budget adjustments, which we don’t have space for,” Mbadi added.
This was followed by series of confusion and attacks towards the CS over his utterances. Mbadi was hard pressed to explain the thousands of shillings that were allocated in the Supplementary Budget for confirming the teachers to PNP.
Julius Melly who chairs the Education and Research Committee in parliament called out the CS terming him a lier.
“Mbadi is lying on confirmation of intern teachers. Money was allocated for converting the teachers to PNP,” said Melly.
Kiharu Member of Parliament (MP), Ndindi Nyoro, who is also the chairman of Budget and Appropriations Committee in the National Assembly affirmed that there is sh 18.7 billion allocation for confirming the teachers this year.
“I want to assure our teachers and especially those who are in JSS. Iam chairman of budget in the national assembly. I want to assure them that we budgeted for sh 18.7 billion to confirm our JSS interns into permanent and pensionable terms,” said Nyoro.
Nyoro asked TSC to start issuing PNP letters to the 46,000 teachers working under internship terms.
The CS has now made an about turn and says the intern teachers will be converted to permanent terms in January 2025.
“I actually implied that there would be no money to pay them from July to December but I should have been very clear that there is money in the budget from January,” said CS Mbadi.
“Government has set aside sh 22 billion for conversion of 46,000 teacher interns to PNP in January 2025. TSC has been alerted on this matter,” added Mbadi.
TSC has on its payroll a total of 46,000 teachers serving on internship terms.
These are 21,550 junior school and 4,000 primary school intern teachers recruited in February 2023.
450 secondary school intern teachers recruited in April 2023. 18,000 junior school and 2,000 primary school intern teachers recruited in September 2023.
TSC had postponed the plan to confirm the teachers in July this year due to lack of funds.
The Commission said it will confirm the teachers in January 2025 due to limited resources it was allocated.
