The Teachers Service Commission decided to actualise the internship policy in 2019 .
However the programme which has caused a lot of anxiety and is disliked especially by unemployed teachers is likely to come to an end after the August 9th General Elections.
While launching his Manifesto the Azimio one Kenya Alliance flag bearer The Rt. Hon Raila Amollo Odinga announced that should he form Government come August 2022 , the issue of unemployed teachers will be a forgotten story.
Raila Promised that his Government shall undertake to employ all qualified and unemployed teachers so as to improve on the quality of Education offered to all Kenyan Children.
This goes without saying that all Teachers will be absorbed through the Teachers Service Commission on permanent terms therefore the issue of intern teachers shall have been overtaken by events and thus a forgotten story.
When the policy kicked off in 2019 the commission employed 10,000 teacher interns to support curriculum delivery in both public primary and secondary schools across the country by then at a cost of Ksh1.2 billion.
The decision to come up with the internship programme was reached at because of the ever increasing teacher shortage in the country and the increased enrolments of students in schools.
Currently the Teacher Service Commission says it has a teacher shortage of over 114,000 teachers in both primary and secondary schools.
In order to ease Teacher shortage the Teachers Service Commission came up with the internship policy to aid in getting more staff to help bridge the gap. The commission appreciates the services rendered by the Teacher interns by remunerating them with a monthly stipend of Ksh. 20,000 and Ksh. 15,000 for secondary and primary school teacher interns respectively.
If the policy is done away with, it will be a big win to all unemployed teachers as they will not work under internship where the pay is little as compared to their permanently employed counterparts yet the workloads they have to contend with are similar.
