TSC to dispatch Promotion Letters to successful teachers

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will begin issuing promotion letters to eligible teachers this week. This includes those who were successful in the recent promotion interviews for post-primary school teachers.

Unsuccessful candidates will also receive regret letters.

Meanwhile, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has published the complete list of teachers who were promoted, detailing how the counties distributed the slots.

Machakos County obtained the majority in the promotions with 690 teachers being elevated, whereas Garissa had the fewest promoted teachers with 303. The list displayed a variety across job grades and the number of positions assigned to each county.

The contentious list of 25,252 teachers who were promoted on April 2 has ignited controversy, as lawmakers have dismissed the list presented in the national assembly, asserting that the promotions were biased.

The commission noted that the positions were allocated with slight variations across counties, regardless of the number of applicants.

The TSC published statistics regarding common cadre promotions and those promoted under affirmative action for the 202/25 financial year, during which 5,291 teachers were promoted across 47 counties.

In this category, the leading beneficiaries were Isiolo County, which saw the promotion of 282 teachers, followed by Lamu with 280 teachers and Mandera, which received 270 teacher promotions.

Counties with the fewest promotions included Kiambu with 46 teachers, Nairobi with 63, Muranga with 63, and both Elgeyo Marakwet and Laikipia, which each received 64.

The commission’s promotions were made from grade C2 to D5, with the largest number of promotions occurring in grade C4, which had 8,508 promotions, followed by C5 with 5,425.

Other categories included 4,971 for C3, 2,519 to D1, 1,445 to C2, and 1,410 to D3.

At the executive level, 799 teachers were advanced to D2, 128 to D4, and a total of 47 were promoted to D5.

TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia stated that the promotions were conducted appropriately according to the commission’s rules, emphasizing that it was regionally balanced.

The CEO, who appeared before the national assembly committee on education, asserted that the process strictly complied with Regulation 72 of the code of regulations for teachers, the career progression guidelines, and the policy overseeing the selection and appointment of institutional administrators.

Committee chair MP Julius Melly remarked that the promotions were conducted against established rules and were not biased.

He pointed out that some teachers were promoted three times consecutively while others remained stagnant in one job group for over a decade, highlighting that the distribution overlooked population dynamics.

The lawmakers will examine what they termed the multiple promotions of newly hired teachers at the expense of others who were shortlisted, interviewed, but have not been promoted for years.

The TSC was given until Thursday this week to present a complete list showing the teachers who have worked in specific job groups prior to promotion, along with the criteria used to promote the 25,252 teachers.

The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Acting Deputy Secretary-General, Moses Nthurima, condemned the Commission for the imbalanced promotion process.

He stated that the criteria disadvantaged numerous educators, particularly in areas facing significant demands for teachers.

Nthurima questioned the promotion of teachers who had served for only six months when the policy stipulates a requirement of three years, asserting that TSC did not apply a matrix for promotion that incorporates years of service, performance, and academic qualifications.
The Union contacted TSC, who have not yet responded to their demands; the union has now pointed out the absence of consultation by the teachers’ employer.