Treasury sets aside ksh 2.5 billion for employing teachers

The National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani has proposed Kshs. 2.5 billion allocation in order to support recruitment of additional teachers in the Financial year 2021/2022.

In total the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has been awarded 281.7 billion to support its annual budget.

Currently TSC is staring at a crisis after it emerged that about 25,000 teachers, who are aged 58 years and above, will retire in two years time.

Over a week ago TSC launched its plan on how it will employ teachers for the next three years.

In the plan contained in the Programme-Based Budget 2021, TSC will employ 15,000 secondary school teachers starting this financial year.

The Commission said it will employ at least 5,000 teachers annually in the next three years to curb looming crisis in secondary schools.

TSC also said it will engage the services of 5,500 interns on a one-year contract every year to plug staffing gaps in schools.

However only 2,000 interns will be posted to primary schools each year.

Cabinet Treasury Ukur Yatani while presenting the 2021/2022 budget in Parliament said that the Government was determined to recover the lost period that led to closure of schools for nine months.

“The outbreak of Covid-19 last year disrupted in person learning leading to closure of schools for nine months. The Government is determined to recover the lost time while ensuring safe learning in our schools, colleges and Universities,” said CS Yatani.

According to CS Yatani, Kshs. 12 billion will go to Free Primary Education (FPE) programme.
Ksh 2.5 billion, the National Treasury says will be used to equip teachers.

To enable the rollout of the Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC), Treasury has allocated Kshs. 1 billion and another Kshs. 420 million for the Digital Literacy Programme.

In terms of infrastructure and development and safe learning in schools, Ksh 4.2 billion has been set aside for that purpose.

In addition, Kshs. 1.8 billion will go to the construction and equipment of technical training institutes and vocational training centres.

Treasury also set aside Kshs. 76.3 billion to University Education and Kshs. 15.8 billion to the High Education Loans Board (HELB).

Other funds allocated to the Education Ministry include; Kshs. 5.8 billion to the Kenya Secondary School Education Improvement project, Kshs. 5.2 billion for capitation for TVET and Kshs. 633 million for promotion of youth employment.

In total Kshs. 503.9 billion has been proposed for allocation in order to support the education

This will be a slight increase compared to Kshs. 487.7 billion the sector was allocated during the FY2020/2021.