This archive report was first published on 23 May 2020.
On May 23, 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that the government would be setting aside an additional Sh6.5 billion for the Ministry of Education to hire more teachers and improve infrastructure.
The funds will be used to cushion the education sector from the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a significant impact on the country.
According to the President, part of the money will be used to hire 10,000 teachers and 1,000 ICT interns during the pandemic season.
He emphasized the government's commitment to ensuring continuous education despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.
"As a government, we are committed to ensuring there is continuous education during this period. As a government, we will be coming up with new guidelines to ensure education continues," said President Kenyatta.
The funds will also be used to buy 250,000 desks for schools across the country, which will be made by local artisans.
The President noted that the employment of new teachers is a strategy to ensure that thousands of unemployed graduates get jobs in the teaching profession.
He highlighted that the education sector is one of the hardest hit sectors by the coronavirus pandemic, with over 300,000 jobless trained and registered tutors in the country.
According to the Teachers Service Commission statistics, there are over 300,000 jobless trained and registered tutors in the country.
As part of efforts to ease staffing shortages, the commission has recruited 16,979 teachers in the past year and 10,000 interns who reported to schools in January.
The government plans to recruit at least 12,000 teachers annually to curb the increasing teacher shortage in public schools, as outlined in the TSC's 2019-2023 strategic plan.
