TSC to distribute promotion letters to 25,288 teachers next month, despite opposition from union.

TSC to distribute promotion letters to 25,288 teachers next month, despite opposition from union.

The Teachers Service Commission, TSC, will distribute promotion letters to 25,288 teachers next month, despite opposition from a teachers’ union.

Sources at the Commission headquarters have revealed that the promotion letters will be issued in April this year to teachers who were successfully selected after attending the January and February promotion interviews.

According to our sources, the Commission will issue promotion letters to the successful teachers while the unsuccessful ones will be issued with regret letters.

TSC will publish a list on its website of teachers who will successfully get promoted.

Kuppet opposes Promotions’ Criteria.

This comes even as the Kenya Union of Post -Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) pushes for the nullification to the Promotion exercise.
KUPPET Accuses TSC of Unfair Teacher Promotions

Last week, KUPPET accused the Teachers’ employer of unfairly promoting newly hired teachers at the expense of long-serving educators.

Speaking in Vihiga on Friday, March 21, KUPPET National Chairperson Omboko Milemba criticized TSC for alleged bias in its promotion criteria.

Milemba claimed that some teachers had stagnated in the same job grade for over seven years, while others with just six months of service were promoted.

“I want TSC to immediately halt all the promotions it is undertaking because they are not doing a good job. They are picking teachers who have only spent six months,” said Milemba.

KUPPET has raised similar concerns before. On January 30, KUPPET Secretary General Moses Nthurima accused TSC of distributing promotion slots unevenly across counties, calling for a pro-rata system to ensure equitable treatment.

Budgetary constraints have long been blamed for teachers’ stagnation in job groups, a challenge that continues to fuel discontent among educators.

But, Teachers in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) have come out gun blazing in support of the TSC policy on Promotions. The Educators, who have largely benefited from the Promotion criteria, have accused the union for wanting to deny them opportunity to rise up quickly considering that they are working in hardship prone areas.

But, Kuppet Acting Secretary General Moses Nthurima says the Commission’s Promotion policies are creating inequalities in the teaching service.

Via a Media Statement issued last week Nthurima says “One major concern, which KUPPET has repeatedly addressed with the Commission, is the distribution of vacancies across the country.” Adding that the TSC has always distributed the vacancies equally among the 47 counties.

He said that ‘given the disparities in staffing levels across the country, such distribution is inherently flawed and unfair to many teachers.’

“A county which has over 11,000 teachers has been allocated the same number of vacancies as another with just 1,000 teachers. The clear implication is that a teacher in the smaller county is 10 times more likely to get promoted compared to his/her counterpart in the more populous county.” He said.

TSC gets more funds for Promotions

The Commission had receives Kshs. 18B in the 2025 supplementary budget for insurance shortfalls, teacher promotions, and personnel emoluments, ensuring quality education delivery.

Promotions Timelines

The promotion interviews for post primary school teachers which started on 27th January ended on 6th February 2025.

Post primary institutions include Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) and Secondary schools.

The promotion interviews for primary school teachers which started on 13th January ended on 23rd January 2025.

The Commission had advertised 25,288 promotion slots for both primary and post primary school teachers.

TSC first advertised 5,690 promotion slots for school administrators through Advert 1 to 4 of 2024 which ran from 12th to 18th November, 2024.

TSC then on 17th December 2024 advertised additional 19,943 slots for teachers from job group C1 to D3 to apply online.

Of these 16,109 slots went to primary schools while a total of 9,179 positions went to post primary institutions.

Promotions attracted numerous applicants

This years promotions just like last years registered a huge number of teachers applying for the various advertised positions.

According to TSC a total of 189,000 teachers applied for promotions and were shortlisted where 96,640 were primary school teachers and 44,043 were post primary school teachers.

This years promotion interviews was different from last years as no questions were asked by the interviewing panels.

The interview panels which consisted of Sub County Directors, Human Resource Officers and Curriculum Support Officers largely restricted on documents verification.

Teachers were required to present their ID’s, academic and some other documents for verification during the interviews.

Promotions Interviews Score sheet

The TSC promotion scoresheet favoured aged teachers those aged forty five years and above.

In the scoresheet teachers aged fifty five years and above were awarded 30 marks.

Those aged fifty to fifty four were awarded 26 marks while those aged forty five to forty nine were awarded 22 marks.

Teachers aged forty to forty four scored 18 marks while those aged thirty to thirty nine scored 14 marks in the scoresheet.

Below is a brief check into the promotion scoresheet used by the Commission in this years interviews.

Academic Qualification

Masters -5 Marks
Degree – 3 Marks
Diploma – 1 Mark

Knec Examiner

4 Marks

Length of Stay in Current Grade

7 years and above – 50Marks
6 years – 40 Marks
5 years – 30 Marks
4 years – 20 Marks
3 years – 10 Marks

TPAD Rating

81+ 10 Marks
61- 80 – 8 Marks
41-60 – 6 Marks
21 – 40 – 4 Marks
1- 20 – 2 Marks

Age

55+ years 30 Marks
50-54 – 26 Marks
45-49 – 22 Marks
40-44 – 18 Marks
30-39 – 14 Marks

Presentation
1 – Mark

Issuance of Promotions letters

Those successful will be contacted to pick their promotion letters by the County and Sub County Directors and will be posted to schools where there are vacancies.

The unsuccessful ones will be issued with regret letters and can try their luck next time. TSC was allocated sh 1 billion for promoting teachers this year.

TSC is facing mass retirements of teachers end of June and August this year and the promotions seek to address the numerous vacancies left by HOI’s and DHOI’s who retired and others planned to exit this year.

Chapter 6 documents

Those successful will however have to produce the five Chapter 6 documents to complete their promotions.

Chapter 6 of the constitution requires that persons working for the public sector, otherwise known as state officials, exhibit leadership and integrity.

As a result, employers need clearance certificates to confirm that the employee exhibits personal integrity, competence and suitability.

Below are the five documents that are mandatory inline with Chapter six of the Kenyan Constitution on ‘Leadership and Integrity’.

• Valid Certificate of Good Conduct from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI)
• Clearance Certificate from the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB)
• Tax Compliance Certificate from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA)
• Clearance from Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)
• A Clearance Certificate from an approved Credit Reference Bureau (CRB)

TSC LIST OF 19,943 ADVERTISED PROMOTION VACANCIES

1. 5/2024 Chief Principal (Regular School) T- Scale 15 Grade D5 Vacancies 44

2. 6/2024 Chief Principal (TTC) T- Scale 15 Grade D5 Vacancies 3

3. 7/2024 Senior Principal (Regular School) T- Scale 14 Grade D4 Vacancies 126

4. 8/2024 Senior Principal (TTC) T- Scale 14 Grade D4 Vacancies 3

5. 9/2024 Principal (Regular School) T- Scale 13 Grade D3 Vacancies 652

6. 10/2024 Deputy Principal I (TTC) T- Scale 13 Grade D3 Vacancies 3

7. 11/2024 Deputy Principal II (Secondary School) T- Scale 12 Grade D2 Vacancies 786

8. 12/2024 Senior Lecturer I (TTC) T-Scale 12 Grade D2 13

9. 13/2024 Deputy Principal III(Regular School) T- Scale 11 Grade D1 Vacancies 1,408

10. 14/2024 Senior Lecturer II (TTC) T- Scale 11 Grade D1 Vacancies 32

11. 15/2024 Senior Master II (secondary SNE) T- Scale 11 Grade D1 Vacancies 2

12. 16/2024 Senior Master III (Regular School) T- Scale 10 Grade C5 Vacancies 1,987

13. 17/2024 Senior Lecturer III (TTC) T- Scale 10 Grade C5 Vacancies 61

14. 18/2024 Senior Master III (secondary SNE) T- Scale 10 Grade C5 Vacancies 6

15. 19/2024 Senior Master IV T- Scale 9 Grade C4 Vacancies 2,221

16. 20/2024 Senior Lecturer IV (TTC) T- Scale 9 Grade C4 Vacancies 70

17. 21/2024 Secondary Teacher I(Diploma teachers only) T- Scale 8 Grade C3 Vacancies 184

18. 22/2024 Lecturer 1 T-Scale 8 Grade C3 Vacancies 7

19. 23/2024 Senior Head teacher (Regular) T- Scale 11 Grade D1 Vacancies 254

20. 24/2024 Senior Head teacher (SNE) T- Scale 11 Grade D1 Vacancies 7

21. 25/2024 Head-Teacher (Regular School) T- Scale 10 Grade C5 Vacancies 2,130

22. 26/2024 Head Teacher (SNE Primary School) T- Scale 10 Grade C5 Vacancies 33

23. 27/2024 Deputy Head-teacher II (Regular Primary School) T- Scale 9 Grade C4 Vacancies 3,653

24. 28/2024 Deputy Head-teacher II (SNE) T- Scale 9 Grade C4 Vacancies 33

25. 29/2024 Senior Teacher I (Regular Primary School) T- Scale 8 Grade C3 Vacancies 4,703

26. 30/2024 Senior Teacher I (SNE Primary School) T- Scale 8 Grade C3 Vacancies 77

27. 31/2024 Senior Teacher II (Regular Primary  School) T- Scale 7 Grade C2 Vacancies 1,364

28. 32/2024 Senior Teacher II (SNE Primary School) T- Scale 7 Grade C2 Vacancies 81

TOTAL 19,943