Junior Secondary School (JSS) intern teachers in Kenya can now breathe a sigh of relief after President William Ruto intimated that they will be employed even as he proposed cuts in Ministries’ respective budget lines. This has been in coherence with the reform in the National Treasury that saw the budget reduce from Ksh 347 billion to only Ksh 117 billion as it remains to protect the crucial programs only.
In a national address from State House, the President assured the country that the employment of JSS intern teachers would go on, just like the medical interns. This comes after the public indicated relief at exempting crucial sectors from the budget cuts as informed by the rejection of the Finance Bill 2024.
“We are going to be proposing a Sh 177 billion cut in the budget and will borrow the difference,” said President Ruto. “We shall use the funds to safeguard some critical areas that the people of Kenya have asked me to prioritize among them the recruitment of JSS and medical interns.”
While the modified budget still has the excess spending that is expected to be covered by borrowing to cover the deficit. Despite the increase in the budget deficit to 4.6% of the GDP from 3.3%, it has been kept lower than the previous year, indicating a prudent fiscal policy.
Among the programs initially lined up for implementation this month was the confirmation into Permanent and Pensionable (PnP) terms for intern teachers in JSS. But a proposal that contained huge budget cuts from the treasury slashing the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) budget by KSH 18 billion, had painted a gloomy picture for the same. However, the intervention by President Ruto means that JSS intern teachers will proceed to be absorbed on permanent and pentionable terms.
On his part, President Ruto said the state department for higher education would receive increased funding after being affected by the new funding model introduced in the last fiscal year. This shows commitment of the administration to continue with strengthening of critical areas for education and health to ensure growth and stability in these critical sectors.