Kenya's junior schools are enrolling almost every child but struggling to teach them well, with too few teachers, too few laboratories and large numbers of learners who still lack basic reading and maths skills.
Usawa Agenda's 2026 Status of Junior School Education report, published on August 19, found that nearly 29 per cent of Grade 9 learners lack foundational literacy and numeracy. Among Grade 7 learners, 41 per cent lack both skills. The report also found that 96 of every 100 children aged 12 to 17 are in school, so access is not the main problem. Quality is.
Facilities are a major gap. The Usawa Agenda report found that only about one in ten junior schools has a functional science laboratory, a serious problem for a curriculum that relies on practical work, experiments and projects.
Staffing is the other. TSC figures put the junior school shortage at about 72,000 teachers, a number its acting chief executive, Eveleen Mitei, has repeated. Many junior schools share premises with primary schools, which raises questions about management and leadership. Education News reports that TSC has proposed separating junior school administration from primary schools.
Hiring is under way. In July, TSC advertised 20,000 junior school teaching posts, with applications open from August 18 to August 31. The Treasury has set aside money to make 20,000 intern teachers permanent from January 2027 and another 24,000 from July 2027.
Even so, the figures suggest a gap that hiring alone will not close quickly. With the first junior school cohort now moving into Senior School, the question is whether learners arrive ready and whether the schools that taught them had the teachers and facilities to do so.
