Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has said Kenya must recruit at least 35,000 teachers every year to meet the country’s education demands and ensure that qualified teachers are fully absorbed into the system.

Speaking during the 48th Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kessha) conference in Mombasa, Ogamba stressed the need for all education stakeholders to work together to address challenges in the sector.

He said the government is committed to raising education standards and producing globally competitive learners.

“You have raised legitimate issues and to the right authorities. We are in this thing together and we will get the solutions together,” Ogamba told the secondary school heads at Sheikh Zayed Hall.

The CS  said the government has employed 76,000 teachers over the past two years and is planning to hire an additional 24,000, bringing the total to 100,000.

“In the manifesto of Kenya Kwanza, the promise was to employ 116,000 teachers by the next elections. When we do another 24,000, we’ll have done 100,000, then the following year we do the balance that we promised,” he said.

According to the CS, current data shows that there are between 62,000 and 65,000 trained teachers with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) numbers who remain unemployed.

He expressed optimism that with proper planning and data-driven strategies, the government can place all qualified teachers in jobs within two to three years.

“That is only possible because we are working with technology to ensure we know where every one of us is so that we can come up with policies to ensure we cover that,” Ogamba said.

He added that the annual teacher requirement is directly tied to proper planning in higher education, warning that oversupply of graduates in education courses must be avoided.

“So that we don’t take 100,000 students a year to do education when we require 35,000 because when the 100,000 come out, it means 65,000 of them will not have place to go,” he said.

Ogamba pointed to the new Kenya Education Management Information System (Kemis), which replaces the old National Education Management Information System, as a critical tool in improving planning and resource allocation.

He said Kemis will enable the government to determine exact needs across regions and help shape better policy decisions.

“It is unacceptable that we have students in schools but because they don’t have a birth certificate they are not captured in our system and therefore they don’t get capitation,” Ogamba said.

Kessha chair Willy Kuria supported the CS’s concerns, saying the lack of capitation for such learners affects schools’ budgets. He said funds meant for those students are spread across others, leading to underfunding.

“And in fact, the capitation is not usually that Sh22,244 that we are supposed to get. It is actually about Sh17,000 because not all of it is usually sent to us,” Kuria said.

Ogamba emphasised that having accurate data will prevent such challenges. He also said the government’s push for e-procurement in schools will ensure transparency and save money. “Every procurement undertaken by government will be seen by the principals,” he said.