- Lentoijoni has proposed strengthening mental health and psychosocial support for teachers, taking wellness interventions closer to county and sub-county levels.
- The agenda has linked teacher wellbeing to staffing levels, workload, infrastructure and career progression, moving beyond the traditional focus on salaries and allowances.
- Lentoijoni has also raised the idea of creating career pathways that allow effective classroom teachers to progress professionally without necessarily moving into administration.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is being pushed towards a new front in teacher management: protecting the physical and mental wellbeing of teachers as workload, staffing pressures and professional demands continue to reshape the classroom.
TSC Commissioner Antonina Lentoijoni is putting mental health, psychosocial support and teacher wellness higher on the Commission’s agenda, with a proposal to take wellbeing interventions closer to teachers at the county and sub-county levels. The emerging agenda marks a significant broadening of the traditional teacher-welfare conversation, which has largely centred on salaries, promotions, recruitment, deployment and working conditions. Lentoijoni’s position brings another question to the centre of education policy: what happens to the teacher who is expected to carry an increasingly demanding education system?
Teacher wellbeing is intertwined with staffing levels, workload, physical working conditions, career progression and the ability to access professional and psychosocial support before pressures become overwhelming. That makes the issue bigger than an employee-welfare programme; it is a question of whether Kenya’s education system can sustainably demand more from teachers while ensuring that the people carrying the weight of the classroom remain physically healthy, psychologically supported and professionally fulfilled.
For years, the teacher has largely been discussed through statistics, numbers recruited, promoted, deployed, trained or paid. Lentoijoni’s intervention brings the human being behind those statistics into sharper focus, and could force TSC to confront a difficult reality: a teacher cannot be expected to continuously absorb the pressures of an expanding education system without the system itself investing in the teacher’s wellbeing.
One of Lentoijoni’s key priorities is strengthening mental-health and wellness programmes and taking support closer to teachers at county and sub-county levels. The significance of this approach lies in accessibility. A teacher facing prolonged stress, emotional exhaustion, family pressures, professional frustration or other psychological difficulties may not seek assistance if support is distant, difficult to access or perceived as detached from the realities of the workplace.
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Bringing wellness structures closer to teachers could create opportunities for earlier intervention, allowing the system to identify difficulties earlier and provide appropriate psychosocial support rather than waiting until a teacher reaches a serious crisis. Such an approach would also help change the perception of mental-health assistance within the teaching profession, so that seeking psychological or psychosocial support is treated as part of maintaining a healthy and sustainable professional workforce rather than as a weakness.
But mental wellbeing cannot be separated from the physical realities of teaching. Where schools have inadequate numbers of teachers, those available inevitably carry additional responsibilities, from handling large classes and preparing lessons to assessing learners, completing records, participating in co-curricular activities and undertaking administrative duties.
This makes teacher recruitment and deployment an important part of the wellbeing conversation, since counselling can help a teacher cope with stress but cannot by itself remove excessive workload created by inadequate staffing. When a school has enough teachers, responsibilities can be distributed more evenly; when staffing gaps persist, individual teachers are more likely to absorb additional duties. The expansion of Junior Secondary School has added another dimension to the issue as Kenya continues to adjust to changing learner populations, curriculum requirements and evolving responsibilities across the basic education system.
The physical side of wellbeing also deserves attention. Teachers spend long periods standing, moving between classrooms, handling large groups of learners and adapting to different school environments. In some parts of Kenya, they work in difficult terrain, travel considerable distances and operate in schools where infrastructure and other working conditions remain challenging. A comprehensive teacher-wellbeing framework should consequently consider workload, working hours, classroom conditions, infrastructure, access to healthcare and the wider environment in which teachers perform their duties.
Lentoijoni’s thinking also introduces professional fulfilment as part of the wellbeing conversation. Career progression can significantly influence how teachers perceive their future within the profession, and for some teachers, advancement has traditionally meant moving from classroom teaching into administration. But not every highly effective classroom teacher necessarily wants to become an administrator. Some may want to remain in the classroom while developing greater expertise, mentoring colleagues and taking on higher professional responsibilities, and creating credible pathways for classroom practitioners to progress without abandoning teaching could become part of the wider wellbeing agenda, alongside opportunities for teachers interested in leadership to move into administration.
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Lentoijoni and fellow commissioner Wilson Sossion joined TSC at a time when the Commission is confronting major questions affecting the teaching profession, including teacher shortages, deployment, promotions, career progression, workload, remuneration and welfare. The emerging wellbeing agenda presents a broader test for the Commission: can teacher welfare move beyond salaries and allowances to encompass the psychological, physical and professional health of the workforce? Can wellness programmes become genuinely accessible to teachers beyond the national level? Can early psychosocial support become a normal component of teacher management? Can staffing interventions reduce excessive workloads? And can career structures give teachers meaningful professional growth without forcing talented classroom practitioners out of teaching?
There is an important distinction between teacher welfare and teacher wellbeing. Teacher welfare has traditionally been associated with salaries, allowances, promotions, medical care and employment benefits. Teacher wellbeing is broader, asking whether the teacher is physically healthy, psychologically supported, professionally fulfilled and able to perform duties within reasonable working conditions. That broader definition could reshape the conversation around Kenya’s teaching profession.
For TSC, the challenge will be implementation. For teachers, the expectation is that the people entrusted with educating Kenya’s children should themselves work in an environment that recognises their humanity. For schools, the challenge is to understand that teacher wellbeing is not separate from institutional performance. And for the education system as a whole, the condition of the classroom cannot be divorced from the condition of the teacher standing in front of it.
By Hillary Muhalya
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