65,000 trained teachers unemployed as CS Ogamba pushes for data-led deployment

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has said Kenya’s education system can only be transformed through accurate data, technology, and joint efforts by all players.

Speaking during the 48th Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) conference in Mombasa, Ogamba said many of the issues raised by secondary school principals are valid and being addressed at the right levels.

He urged them to work together with government agencies to find lasting solutions.

“You have raised legitimate issues with the right authorities. We are in this thing together, and we will get the solutions together,” Ogamba said at the event held at Sheikh Zayed Hall.

The CS revealed that a major challenge facing the sector is teacher distribution, with an estimated 62,000 to 65,000 trained teachers holding Teachers Service Commission (TSC) numbers still out of work.

He said the government has already hired 76,000 teachers in two years and plans to add 24,000 more.

“In the manifesto of Kenya Kwanza, the promise was to employ 116,000 teachers by the next elections. When we do another 24,000, we’ll have done 100,000, then the following year we do the balance that we promised,” the CS noted.

Ogamba said proper teacher deployment is only possible through the use of technology, which is being adopted by the Ministry of Education to ensure every teacher is accounted for and policies are aligned to actual needs.

“That is only possible because we are working with technology to ensure we know where every one of us is so that we can come up with policies to ensure we cover that,” he stated.

The Education boss said Kenya needs 35,000 new teachers every year, and university enrolment for education courses must reflect this to avoid flooding the market with unemployed graduates.

“So that we don’t take 100,000 students a year to do education when we require 35,000 because when the 100,000 come out, it means 65,000 of them will not have a place to go,” Ogamba said.

The CS said the newly launched Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS), which replaces the previous National Education Management Information System, will provide the necessary data to support teacher deployment and funding.

He raised concerns over students missing out on capitation funding due to a lack of birth certificates, saying they are not reflected in the education database, and schools suffer as a result.

“It is unacceptable that we have students in schools, but because they don’t have a birth certificate, they are not captured in our system and therefore they don’t get capitation,” he said.

KESSHA chair Willy Kuria backed the CS’s remarks, saying schools are forced to stretch existing funds to cater for students left out of the capitation list.

“And in fact, the capitation is not usually that Sh22,244 that we are supposed to get. It is actually about Sh17,000 because not all of it is usually sent to us,” Kuria said.

Ogamba said the government is now focused on getting accurate data to prevent such cases and ensure better financial planning. He also said the planned rollout of e-procurement across schools will help save public funds and improve transparency.

“Every procurement undertaken by the government will be seen by the principals,” he said.