Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET)) chairman Omboko Milemba has said the Teachers Service Commission is legally required to employ teachers on permanent terms and not on contract.
Milemba spoke on Wednesday during an interview with Citizen TV.
He said TSC is constitutionally required to employ teachers on permanent contracts.
"It has been mandated to employ teachers on a Permanent and Pensionable basis," Milemba said.
He was reminiscent that the internship programme was first introduced in 2011.
"Never before had we heard TSC employ teachers on an internship or temporary basis before then," Milemba said.
"Therefore when TSC tried to employ teachers on a temporary basis which is called interns, we as a union went to court and won."
He said the teachers who were employed as interns in 2011 were eventually employed on permanent and pensionable terms in 2012 after which the programme was stopped.
Until JSS teachers were needed and the internship programme was brought back.
He noted that when teachers were taken as interns in 2023, they were promised permanent and pensionable terms after a year in the temporary position.
"When goal posts were changed to two years as interns before they get permanent contracts, there was agitation," he said.
He said there was a promissory note from the government and the education committee from parliament in the next financial year would have the interns employed on permanent and pensionable terms.
He said the JSS interns want assurance from the TSC that when the new financial year comes, they will get permanent and pensionable contracts.
" That assurance is key so that we settle this matter. We have written to TSC, to the National Treasury to try and make sure that teachers are on P and P terms in the next financial year which begins in June," Omboko said.
This comes even as the JSS intern teachers' strike entered the second week.
On 17 April, Justice Bryrum Ongaya of the Employment and Labour Relations Court ruled that TSC violated the intern teachers' right to fair labour practice.
The government plans to put 26,000 JSS intern teachers on permanent and pensionable status in the next financial year starting from June 2024.