Don’t slash funds for JSS absorption, Kirinyaga teachers tell state

Junior Secondary School intern teachers from Kirinyaga county have called on the government not to slash money allocated in the 2024/25 budget for their absorption on permanent and pensionable terms.

Branch chairman Josphat Kariuki said there have been reports that the money will be slashed.

“But what we are saying is that the allocation should be protected and there should be no reallocation of JSS interns' employment money,” he said.

“In any case, it should be scaled up because teachers have never been enough, but schools continue to be built while children are still being born,” he added.

JSS teachers, he said, expect to sign their appointment letters as permanent and pensionable teachers starting July.

Their spokesmen Moses Gachoki said reports have it that the money will be slashed and the number of interns to be absorbed halved.

He said they were aware that the government plans to employ only 26,000 teachers instead of the earlier number of 46,000.

President William Ruto is quoted to have said Sunday that the government will go ahead with its plan to hire all the 46,000 teachers, they said.

“Let’s not take the words of the President lightly. He promised that all the 46,000 teachers will be employed permanently. Let people not play politics with this issue,” he warned.

“We are telling the government that if there is any reallocation of money in the budget that is going to happen, kindly let it not touch on the issue of JSS employment,” Martin Mwai, the Kirinyaga JSS secretary general, said.

Wanjiku Muriithi said the Sh17,000 they have been receiving as stipend is insufficient and that the way to solve the problem was through their confirmation.

They spoke to the media in Kutus town Tuesday.

The National Assembly Finance committee had announced that it had allocated Sh18 billion to absorb intern JSS teachers on a permanent and pensionable basis.

Molo MP Kuria Kimani made the announcement during a Kenya Kwanza parliamentary group meeting at State House on June 18.

The media recently reported that Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u had proposed a budget cut of Sh19 billion allocated to TSC for employment of  the teachers.

This followed a resolution by Kenya Kwanza MPs to do away with some tax proposals in the 2024 Finance Bill following countrywide demonstrations by Kenyans.

This will, consequently, lead to the deferment of the absorption of the teachers.

Meanwhile, as the teachers made the appeal, hundreds of youths calling for the rejection of the Finance Bill, 2024, in its entirety continued with their demonstrations in Kutus and Kerugoya towns Tuesday.