In a ruling delivered on April 17, 2024, the High Court in Nairobi declared that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) violated labour laws by hiring over 50,000 trained and registered JSS teachers as interns.

The case was filed by The Forum for Good Governance and Human Rights challenging TSC’s circular in January 2023 that advertised teaching positions for Junior Secondary Schools but classified the roles as “internships” with reduced pay and benefits compared to fully employed teachers.

The court ruled that TSC does not have the mandate to recruit and employ individuals who have not trained and registered as teachers. By hiring qualified teachers under the guise of “interns”, the commission violated the teachers’ rights to fair labor practices and remuneration.

Court Ruling on Hiring of JSS Intern Teachers by TSC

Principal Judge Byram Ongaya issued four key orders:

• Declaring TSC’s intern teacher hiring circular and contracts as contravening TSC laws.
• Stating that TSC cannot recruit or employ anyone not trained and registered as a teacher.
• Confirming the hired teachers’ rights to fair labor were violated.
• Prohibiting TSC from hiring student-teachers or interns going forward.

However, the court declined to order compensation for the affected teachers, citing lack of specifics on underpayment amounts.

Intern Teacher’s Reaction to the Ruling

A group representing the over 50,000 affected JSS teachers welcomed the ruling, stating their contracts have been declared null and void. They insisted that all teachers of similar qualifications must receive equal pay for equal work in the same environment, regardless of contractual terms.

“There is no way teachers doing the same job with the same training should face different salaries through an opaque hiring process,” said one intern teacher representative.

The teachers called on the government to ensure TSC complies with the ruling by giving all qualified teachers proper employment terms and salaries.

This ruling could have wide-ranging impacts on teacher hiring and employment practices going forward. Unless TSC appeals the ruling, Junior Secondary School will be the most affected as it was mainly run by JSS intern teachers.