Lamu Teachers Demand Confirmation of 20,000 JSS Interns: Decry Poor Conditions

By Fumo Mzalendo

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmil.com

Lamu County teachers are pressurising the national government to immediately confirm approximately 20,000 Junior Secondary School (JSS) interns to permanent and pensionable terms.

They cited crippling staff shortages and overwhelming workloads as the basis for their demand.

Speaking during a Lamu KUPPET members’ meeting in Mpeketoni today (September 29, 2025), Sofia Njagi, a Hindi Town based JSS teacher called on the government to speed up the process of confirming the interns whom she claims have been overloaded with over 37 lessons weekly due to lack of enough teachers.

“Apart from fully confirming the JSS intern teachers the government also needs to address the lack of proper infrastructure that is plaguing most schools especially here in Lamu, where two or three grades of learners are being forced in some instances to share classrooms,” she said.

The teacher noted that there has been poor responses on several issues raised by KUPPET members towards the branch’s current secretariat.

She stated that there was lack of communication over any national government directives to address the plight of learning especially within remote areas such as the Boni where teachers were forced to work under extraneous circumstances.

“In some schools especially within the Boni and Lamu East, teachers work under very tough conditions, where in some schools three teachers have been left to teach all the grades,” Timothy Wanyonyi, a Mokowe based teacher noted.

He said the current Lamu KUPPET branch administration has failed in its mandate to address such concerns or even bring them to the attention of Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to address them as they were affecting learning in the county.

These sentiments were echoed by KUPPET executive director aspirant Ayub Were who stated that there was urgent need to address the plight of teachers and the infrastructure within the county if Lamu was to improve learning standards in the foreseeable future.

“The current KUPPET branch administration has failed in its mandate to handle the plight of Lamu teachers and JSS interns, many of whom are working under tough conditions such as insufficient capitation for schools, lack of a regular school feeding initiative that would otherwise keep children in schools,” he said.

The aspirant challenged the secretariat to divulge the details of a meeting they held with the President at State House two weeks ago saying teachers were “in the dark” over what issues were prioritized for resolution, particularly for remote areas where learning was the most affected.