A qualified primary school teacher from Busia County is calling on the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to hire her before retirement age makes it too late, sharing a story of years of patience, personal loss and unfulfilled professional dreams.
Elizabeth Akirapa, a certified P1 teacher based in Angaro, Teso North Constituency, has been waiting for a placement in Kenya’s public education system since 2017.
Despite holding all the required qualifications and documentation, she has yet to secure a single teaching post through the commission.
What makes Elizabeth’s situation particularly striking?
Her story was shared publicly on Facebook on September 25, 2026, by Duke Joseph, and has drawn attention to the quiet struggles of qualified teachers who remain unemployed despite being ready to serve.
What makes Elizabeth’s situation particularly striking is the personal hardship she overcame to reach this point.
She lost both her parents while still young, navigating childhood and education without the support most take for granted.
Why is Elizabeth’s appeal both urgent and measured?
Rather than abandon her studies, she pressed on until she earned her teaching qualification, a milestone that represented years of sacrifice and determination.
Now married and settled in Teso North, she has spent nearly a decade holding onto the hope that the TSC would eventually call her name.
With retirement age drawing closer, Elizabeth’s appeal is both urgent and measured.
How does TSC recruit teachers?
She is not demanding special treatment; her request is simply that the commission consider her for employment if she meets the applicable recruitment criteria and vacancies exist.
The TSC recruits teachers periodically based on available vacancies and budgetary allocations from the national government.
For teachers who trained years ago and have been waiting in the queue, each recruitment cycle that passes without their name on the list is another year closer to disqualification by age.
Why is teaching important for Elizabeth?
For Elizabeth, the stakes are deeply personal. Teaching was never merely a career option; it was a calling she worked extraordinarily hard to answer.
The chance to stand in front of a classroom and shape the lives of Kenyan children, even for a few years before retirement, is what she is asking for.
Her case raises broader questions about the gap between the number of qualified teachers Kenya produces and the absorption capacity of the public school system, particularly for those who trained and registered years ago and have been overlooked through successive recruitment cycles.
