With just three months left before the first cohort of Competency-Based Education (CBE) learners move to senior school, the Ministry of Education has sounded the alarm on a severe teacher shortage across critical learning areas.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba revealed that basic education institutions require 137,500 more teachers, despite large-scale recruitment in recent years. The most affected areas are pre-technical studies, STEM fields, home science, art and craft, music, and social studies.
A Teachers Service Commission (TSC) report indicates that junior school alone faces a deficit of 72,422 teachers, while senior school requires 65,070 more. This comes at a time when Kenya’s curriculum reforms demand specialised skills that many existing teachers lack.
Professor Julius Bitok, the Principal Secretary for Basic Education, highlighted another pressing gap—the lack of trained indigenous language teachers. “No university or college in Kenya trains for indigenous languages. This is an urgent gap we must address,” he noted.
Despite growing enrolment in teacher training institutions, there remains a mismatch between supply and demand. Public diploma colleges have a combined capacity of 49,000, while universities have expanded education programmes with over 183,000 students, mostly in arts-related courses. However, postgraduate enrolment remains low, limiting advanced specialisation.
The Ministry is currently projecting the total teacher need over the next five years, with the goal of ensuring that every trained teacher secures employment upon graduation by 2027.
The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms has proposed structured internships, mentorship, and retooling to prepare teachers for the Competency-Based Teacher Education (CBTE) framework. Plans are also underway to upgrade P1 and ECDE teachers to diploma level and standardise entry grades for teacher training at a minimum of C (Plain).
As CBE ushers learners into three career pathways—STEM, arts and sports, and social sciences—the shortage of teachers threatens to slow down the government’s ambitious education reforms. The urgent question remains: will Kenya have enough trained teachers by January?
