The National Assembly's Budget and Appropriations Committee chairperson, Ndindi Nyoro, says the government has allocated monies to facilitate the permanent employment of Junior Secondary School (JSS) teachers.
His sentiment followed that of National Treasury CS John Mbadi, who said the government's cash crunch would make it impossible to hire educators on permanent and pensionable terms.
But speaking in Nandi county on Saturday, August 24, the Kiharu MP, who had accompanied President William Ruto on a working tour, revealed the government had set aside funds despite the fate that caught the Finance Bill 2024.
"I want to assure our JSS interns that I am the chairman of the budget committee in the National Assembly; we budgeted Sh 18.7 billion to confirm our JSS interns into permanent and pensionable terms. All that money is available, so when they hear things, they should know that as their brothers and sisters, we care about them," said Nyoro.
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The lawmaker observed that it would be unreasonable for the educators to continue earning Sh 17,000 salary despite having been interning for over two years.
Nyoro said the money for the JSS teachers is different from the one the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) promised basic education teachers in their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
He said the interns' employment would be actualised upon TSC completing the process of onboarding them into the government directory.
"The president and the government have seen it irrational for the teachers to continue earning Sh 17,000. I want to confirm that the money for all the 46,000 JSS interns is intact. We want TSC to hurry in giving them employment letters," said Nyoro.
In a recent TV interview, Mbadi authoritatively stated that there would be no adjustments to the budget to accommodate the JSS interns matter.
"We don't have resources for recruiting JSS teachers on permanent, that I would be lying. We also don't have resources for the additional 20,000," he said.
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