Kenya trains more teachers each year than it hires into public schools. This is not a supply problem. It is a budget allocation problem that successive administrations have chosen not to fully solve.
The Numbers Tell a Consistent Story
Teachers Service Commission hiring numbers in recent years have consistently fallen short of the vacancies reported by school administrators, even as teacher training colleges continue producing qualified graduates who cannot find public sector positions.
The gap is filled unevenly — better-resourced schools hire additional staff through parent associations, while under-resourced schools, often in rural and marginalized areas, simply operate with fewer teachers per student than national guidelines recommend.
A Solvable Problem
This is, encouragingly, a problem with a known solution: sustained increases in TSC's hiring budget, prioritized toward understaffed schools. What has been missing is not a policy roadmap but consistent political will to fund it.
