Inside the Two New National Bodies Set to Reshape Teacher Training in Kenya
Buried within the Pre-Service Education and In-Service Training in Basic Education Bill, 2026, are two entirely new institutions that, if the Bill becomes law, will reshape how Kenya trains its teachers and develops its education managers.
These are the Kenya Teachers Training College (KTTC) and the Kenya School of Education (KSE). While they sit within the same piece of legislation and share an almost identical governance design, they are built to do very different jobs — one focused on preparing people to become teachers, the other on developing people who are already working in the education system.
Understanding both institutions in detail helps explain what is arguably the most consequential part of the entire Bill.
Two Institutions, One Legislative Blueprint
Before getting into what makes each institution distinct, it’s worth noting how similar their legal architecture is. Both the College and the School are established as bodies corporate — meaning each is a legal entity in its own right, separate from the government departments that oversee it.
As bodies corporate, both can sue and be sued, acquire or dispose of property, enter into contracts, and borrow or lend money, just like any other substantial public institution.
Both have perpetual succession, meaning they continue to exist as legal entities even as their staff, board members, and leadership change over time, and both are given a common seal to authenticate official documents and decisions.
This shared legal foundation reflects a broader strategy in the Bill: rather than leaving teacher preparation and professional development scattered across many independent, loosely regulated institutions, the law creates two clearly defined, accountable national bodies with parallel structures, so that the country’s approach to educator training and development becomes more coherent and easier to monitor.
The Kenya Teachers Training College: Preparing Kenya’s Future Teachers
The Kenya Teachers Training College is designed to be the central institution for pre-service education — that is, the training of people before they become qualified teachers.
Its functions, as spelled out in the Bill, are threefold: to offer pre-service education directly, to conduct research and provide consultancy services related to pre-service education, and to advise the Cabinet Secretary responsible for education on matters connected to how teachers are trained before they enter the profession.
In practical terms, this means the College will not merely be a policy body sitting above the education sector — it will actually run training programmes, admit students, and produce graduates who go on to become registered teachers.
Governing the College
The College is managed by a Board, and the composition of this Board reveals a deliberate attempt to balance government oversight with independent expertise. The Board includes:
- A chairperson appointed directly by the President.
- The Principal Secretary responsible for basic education (or someone they formally designate).
- The Principal Secretary responsible for the National Treasury (or a designated representative), reflecting the College’s financial dependence on public funds.
- The Attorney-General (or a designated representative), bringing legal oversight to the Board’s decisions.
- A representative from the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee, acknowledging that education delivery in Kenya involves both national and county government structures.
- The Secretary to the Teachers Service Commission, linking the College’s work directly to the body that ultimately employs and manages teachers nationally.
- The Director of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, ensuring that what the College teaches aligns with the national curriculum.
- Three independent members, who must not be public officers, appointed by the Cabinet Secretary — bringing in perspectives from outside government.
- The chief administrator of the College, who sits on the Board as a non-voting, ex-officio member, ensuring the person running daily operations is present for all discussions without having a formal vote.
This is a large, deliberately diverse Board, blending political appointment, civil service representation, legal oversight, and outside expertise.
Who Can Serve, and For How Long
The Bill is specific about who qualifies to lead this Board. To be the chairperson, a person must be a Kenyan citizen, hold a university degree recognised in Kenya, have at least ten years of relevant work experience — in fields as varied as education, management, human resources, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, social sciences, creative arts, or sports — and meet the integrity requirements set out in Chapter Six of the Constitution, Kenya’s constitutional chapter dealing with leadership and integrity in public office.
The three independently appointed members face a slightly lower bar of six years of relevant experience, but must meet the same citizenship, education, and integrity requirements.
Both the chairperson and these appointed members serve three-year terms, renewable once for a further three years if their performance has been satisfactory. This structure is designed to provide enough continuity for long-term planning while still allowing for periodic renewal and accountability.
Running the College Day to Day
Above the Board sits the chief administrator — effectively the College’s chief executive. This is a demanding role with high entry requirements: the person must hold both a degree and a Master’s degree in education, have at least ten years of work experience, five of which must be in senior management within a public or private institution, and, like Board members, meet Chapter Six integrity standards.
The chief administrator’s responsibilities are wide-ranging. They are responsible for the College’s day-to-day management, serve as its academic head, supervise the administrators running individual campuses, implement the Board’s decisions, and maintain the College’s official records. This is a four-year term, renewable once, again conditional on satisfactory performance.
A Network of Campuses, Not a Single Site
One of the most significant practical features of the College is that it will not operate from a single physical location. The Bill empowers the Cabinet Secretary, acting on the Board’s advice, to establish campuses of the College across the country.
Each campus will have its own institutional administrator, responsible for the day-to-day running of that campus and for the actual delivery of pre-service education on the ground, reporting up to the chief administrator.
Rather than building this campus network from nothing, the Bill takes a shortcut with major practical consequences: it lists 32 existing teacher training colleges that will automatically become campuses of the new KTTC once the law takes effect.
These include long-established institutions such as Kaimosi, Meru, Machakos, Kericho, Murang’a, Narok, Kitui, Migori, Garissa, and Mandera Teacher Training Colleges, among many others spread across the country.
This absorption is designed to be seamless. The assets these colleges currently hold, their existing legal rights and obligations, any pending legal cases involving them, and — importantly — their existing staff, will all transfer automatically to the new College.
Even certificates and diplomas already awarded by these colleges before the transition will be treated, going forward, as though they were issued by the Kenya Teachers Training College itself. This is meant to protect students and graduates from any disruption or loss of recognition caused by the institutional restructuring.
The Kenya School of Education: Developing Those Already in Service
While the College looks forward — training people who are not yet teachers — the Kenya School of Education looks at those already working in the system.
Its focus is squarely on in-service training: the continuous professional development of practising teachers and of education managers such as headteachers, county education officials, and school board members.
The School’s functions are considerably broader than the College’s, reflecting the wider range of people and needs it must serve. It is tasked with developing and evaluating in-service training programmes, in collaboration with the Teachers Service Commission and other relevant government agencies.
It is also expected to work with the private sector and international organisations to actually deliver this training — an acknowledgment that professional development in education often benefits from partnerships beyond government alone.
Beyond training teachers themselves, the School has a specific mandate to run induction courses for newly appointed members of county education boards, school boards of management, and parent-teacher associations — recognising that these governance bodies also need structured orientation to perform their roles effectively.
The School will additionally conduct examinations for people undertaking its training programmes and award certificates and diplomas to those who pass, mirroring the assessment role the Kenya National Educational Assessments Council plays for pre-service students.
It is also expected to offer research and consultancy services that inform national policy on in-service training, and to promote public awareness of the importance of continuous professional development for educators.
A Nearly Identical Governance Model
The School’s Board is structured almost exactly like the College’s, right down to the categories of members: a presidentially appointed chairperson, the Principal Secretaries for basic education and the National Treasury (or their designated representatives), the Attorney-General, a representative of the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee, the Secretary to the Teachers Service Commission, the Director of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, three independently appointed members who are not public officers, and a non-voting ex-officio seat for the institution’s top administrator — in this case, the chief executive officer.
The qualification requirements for the chairperson and members are identical to those for the College’s Board: citizenship, a recognised degree, relevant years of experience, and Chapter Six integrity compliance, with the same three-year renewable terms.
The chief executive officer of the School must meet the same high bar as the College’s chief administrator — a degree and Master’s degree in education, at least ten years of experience with five in senior management, and integrity clearance — and serves the same four-year renewable term, with day-to-day responsibilities that closely parallel those of the College’s top administrator, adjusted for the School’s focus on in-service training rather than pre-service education.
Branches Rather Than Campuses
Instead of “campuses,” the School’s decentralised sites are called branches, and instead of absorbing three dozen institutions, it will take in just five: the Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa, the Kenya Education Management Institute, the Kibabii Diploma Teachers Training College, the Kagumo Teachers Training College, and the Lugari Teachers Training College.
As with the College’s absorption of teacher training colleges, these institutions’ assets, obligations, staff, and previously issued certificates will transfer to the School, and two existing legal orders that currently govern some of these bodies will be formally revoked once the transition is complete.
Two Institutions, One Coherent Vision
Taken together, the Kenya Teachers Training College and the Kenya School of Education represent a clear division of labour: one institution builds the pipeline of new teachers entering the profession, while the other sustains and strengthens the skills of those already working within it.
Both are designed with almost mirror-image governance structures — a deliberate choice that suggests lawmakers wanted consistency, accountability, and comparable standards of leadership across both pillars of Kenya’s education workforce development system.
If this Bill becomes law, these two bodies would collectively absorb dozens of existing institutions into a more centralised, nationally coordinated system — one intended to bring clearer oversight, more consistent quality standards, and a more unified national approach to how Kenya prepares and develops the people who teach its children.
