The 46, 000 intern Junior Secondary School (JSS) teachers poised for Permanent and Pensionable (PnP) terms, risk not being hired following the rejection of the Finance Bill.
On Friday, June 28, 2024 President William Ruto instructed the National Treasury to prepare supplementary estimates to reduce expenditure by the amount of revenue that was expected to be generated by the rejected Finance Bill which he declined to sign.
The Head of State referred back the Bill to the National Assembly to delete all the clauses.
As a result, there will be a reduction on expenditure amounting to Ksh346 billion affecting all the three arms of government including ministries, departments, and agencies.
Consequently, Ruto directed the National treasury to instruct all the Principal Secretaries in different ministries to cut down the Financial Year 2024/25 budget across all activities in order to align the Budget to the revised Fiscal Framework.
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The reduction might impact the 46,000 JSS intern teachers who have been eagerly awaiting their confirmation since 2023.
In the proposed Budget cuts by the National Treasury seen by Education News, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will receive less KSh18.9.
The Treasury has now instructed Commission to postpone confirmation of interns to PnP and hiring of JSS intern teachers.
In other state departments within the Education docket, the state department for Higher Education and Research budget has been reduced by KSh8.3 billion.
The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) will see a cut of 3.2 billion — which will results to quite a number of students missing out on the funding.
Also, infrastructure projects budget has been reduced by KSh3 billion, and Differentiated Unit Cost has been slashed by KSh2.1 billion.
The state department for Basic Education has a reduction of KSh3.4 billion in the budget with the school feeding programme seeing slashed KSh1.8 billion, and the infrastructure for schools budget has been reduced by a sum of KSh1.6 billion.
Also, the state department for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions will get less KSh800 million from its initial budget allocation. The amount reduced will affect the on-going TVET and TTIs projects.
By Vostine Ratemo
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