Ruto Announces 120,000 New Teacher Jobs by December 2026

President William Ruto has announced a package of measures to improve teachers’ welfare, including preferential access to affordable housing, expanded healthcare cover, promotions, salary increases and faster payment of retirement benefits.

Speaking during this year’s World Teachers’ Day celebrations at Kasarani, Ruto said the government was working with teachers’ unions and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to address housing, employment, career progression and retirement concerns affecting educators. Under an agreement between the Affordable Housing Board and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), 20 percent of units developed under the Affordable Housing Programme will be reserved for teachers.

The arrangement will give teachers priority access to one in every five units in participating affordable housing projects. The government is also working with the TSC to establish a salary check-off system through which teachers can make housing payments directly from their monthly salaries.

Officials are further working with teachers’ savings and credit co-operatives to develop financing products suited to teachers’ incomes. Applications for the housing units will continue to be made through the Boma Yangu platform.

The government has also expanded healthcare cover for teachers through the Social Health Authority (SHA). Ruto said inpatient coverage for teachers had doubled, bringing it to the same level available to other civil servants.

He said the number of healthcare facilities accessible to teachers and their dependants had also increased significantly, with public, faith-based and private facilities now available under the scheme. Government figures show that hundreds of thousands of teachers and their family members have used the health scheme since its introduction.

On employment, Ruto said the government was on course to recruit 120,000 teachers by December 2026. The target is higher than the earlier projection of 116,000 recruits by 2027 and is supported by a Sh784.5 billion allocation to education in the 2026-27 financial year.

The recruitment programme includes the conversion of 20,000 teachers serving on contract into permanent and pensionable employment. The move is expected to provide greater job security and access to established career progression structures for those teachers.

Ruto also said more than 126,000 teachers had been promoted since he took office. He added that the TSC had advertised more than 34,000 additional promotion positions and urged the commission to increase the number to 50,000,  with the government ready to provide funding for the additional positions.

The President said discussions between teachers’ unions and the TSC on revised career progression guidelines had been completed. The proposed guidelines are now awaiting approval from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.

On pay, Ruto said implementation of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement 

(CBA) was progressing as planned. The first phase of salary increases was implemented last year, followed by the second phase earlier this year.

The government has allocated an additional Sh8.1 billion in the latest budget to support implementation of the agreement. Ruto also said a proposal by teachers to reduce the duration of future CBAs from four years to two years was still under consideration.

The proposed change would allow teachers’ salaries and other employment terms to be reviewed more frequently. Ruto also announced plans to speed up the payment of retirement benefits to teachers. He said the TSC and the National Treasury were implementing a Pension Management Information System to reduce the time required to process pension claims.