Schools Rush to Submit Term Three TPAD Summaries as TSC Plans AI Training and System Overhaul
Schools across the country are racing to submit their Term Three Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) summaries, even as the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) moves to train teachers on artificial intelligence (AI) tools and introduce changes to the online appraisal system.
Schools closed for the term last week, but the TPAD process does not end with the closing bell. Summaries are due in the week that follows.
Headteachers and principals are responsible for submitting them to Sub-County Directors through zonal Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs).
In practice, many heads delegate the work to ICT teachers, who are now busy finalizing the exercise. The urgency is familiar, but this year it comes against a backdrop of significant change.
A tender for training and system review
In a notice published on MyGov on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Commission invited interested and eligible bidders to offer services for teacher training on AI applications and for the review, development and deployment of its TPAD online systems.
The Commission is seeking a consultant to retool teachers in digital capacity building, pedagogical innovation, AI applications, data ethics and practical AI tools for Competency-Based Education (CBE) in Kenya.
The notice signals that the Commission intends to go beyond a simple upgrade of the portal. It points to a broader strategy of building teachers’ technological skills while embedding smarter functions in the appraisal platform that has governed their professional evaluation for a decade.
How the summaries come together
The process involves two separate stages. Teachers fill in their TPADs online, entering scores, appraisal details and supporting evidence on the portal.
The summaries are a different document. They are compiled and averaged from the TPADs teachers have submitted, using an Excel sheet provided by the Commission, and then forwarded to the Sub-County Director through the zonal CSO.
This arrangement explains why the post-closure week is so tense. A summary can only be as complete as the TPADs behind it.
If teachers delay their online entries, or if appraisers hold back countersigning, the person compiling the summary is left waiting, chasing colleagues and re-checking figures.
The ICT teachers who are often handed this duty find themselves at the end of a long chain, with a deadline that does not move.
Why the rush now
Under the TPAD calendar, rating meetings between teachers and their appraisers are to be completed by the closing date of the term, and data and evidence are expected to be uploaded throughout the term.
In practice, many schools deviate from this schedule. Teachers often delay their entries until the closing weeks, which compounds server traffic and invites administrative friction.
That backlog spills into the summary week, when the school’s figures must be consolidated and sent off.
This term is no different. Teachers say the crunch is heavier because of structural changes requiring scores for specific learning areas rather than sweeping composite grades.
A teacher handling Creative Arts and Sports, for instance, can no longer enter one blanket score. Separate evaluations must be submitted for Art and Craft, Music, and Physical Education.
The change improves tracking under the Competency-Based Curriculum, but it multiplies the data fields teachers must complete and lengthens the exercise.
Add the requirement to scan and upload supporting evidence, and the final stretch becomes a race against both the deadline and a congested portal.
Teachers who handle several learning areas are particularly stretched, and lesson observation forms and class attendance registers, long sources of dispute, add to the pile of documents to be assembled and verified.
Heads in the middle
School heads sit at the centre of this process. They are appraisers, supervisors, mentors and, in many cases, the final gatekeepers.
They must also meet their own obligations, including termly Performance Contracts submitted to TSC Sub-County Directors.
The Commission has maintained a zero-tolerance stance toward administrators who neglect their supervisory duties, and has repeatedly warned against failing to appraise teachers or refusing to countersign appraisals without valid cause.
Critics argue this has created a pressurized, top-down environment in which some heads push staff to clear appraisals mainly to protect themselves from disciplinary action.
That pressure helps explain the scramble now unfolding. With schools closed, heads are urging teachers to finalize their online TPADs quickly so that countersigning can be completed, summaries compiled and submissions made through the zonal CSOs on time.
Heads already sensitized on the new tool
The planned AI component follows a nationwide sensitization programme for heads of institutions ahead of the roll-out of a revised TPAD tool.
The programme was designed to ensure administrators understand the new framework before teachers begin using it, reflecting a lesson learned over the past decade: the success of TPAD depends heavily on the people who lead schools.
The appraisal system was launched ten years ago as a shift from punitive inspections to collaborative professional growth.
It has evolved considerably, starting with seven broad standards, being trimmed to five in 2020 to ease the move to a fully digital platform, and now reduced to four.
Rooted in Regulation 42 of the Code of Regulations for Teachers (2015), the revised framework is meant to be shorter, smarter and fully aligned with CBE.
The four standards are:
- Effective Curriculum Delivery, covering professional document preparation, content mastery and learner-centred pedagogy, reinforced by mandatory peer-to-peer lesson observations at least twice per term.
- Comprehensive Learner-Centred Environment, emphasizing talent identification, learner well-being, discipline management and sustainable practices aligned with the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
- Integration of Technology in Teaching and Learning, measuring a teacher’s ability to retrieve digital educational content, engage learners through virtual platforms and use adaptive teaching methods.
- Teacher Professional Growth and Development, prioritizing self-directed growth, mentorship, coaching and participation in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
The third standard dovetails with the Commission’s latest move. If teachers are to be assessed on technology integration, they will need the skills and tools to meet that expectation. The AI training tender appears aimed at precisely that gap.
What AI could mean for appraisal
The tender notice does not spell out how AI will function within TPAD, and details will likely emerge as the consultant is selected and the system review progresses. But the areas named in the notice offer clues about the Commission’s priorities.
Training in AI applications and practical AI tools for CBE suggests teachers could be equipped to use such tools in lesson planning, assessment design, preparing schemes of work and generating learning materials. These are the professional documents teachers must prepare under the first standard.
The emphasis on data ethics is equally notable. As teachers’ performance data, learner information and classroom evidence flow through digital systems, questions of privacy, consent, accuracy and responsible use become central. Teachers will need to understand not only how to use AI tools, but when not to.
Observers say a well-designed AI component could ease the administrative load, for example by helping organize evidence, flagging incomplete entries or reducing repetitive data entry across multiple learning areas.
It could also reduce the manual work of compiling school summaries in Excel, though the notice does not say whether that is intended.
Questions teachers are likely to ask
The prospect of AI in an appraisal system will raise questions. Teachers who have complained of unfairly low marks and subjective remarks may wonder whether automated tools will make ratings fairer or simply add another layer of opacity.
Others will ask how their data will be used, who will have access to it, and whether AI-generated suggestions will influence decisions on their careers.
There are practical concerns too. Many schools, particularly in rural and marginalized areas, contend with unreliable internet, limited devices and electricity gaps.
A system that depends on advanced digital tools risks widening existing inequalities unless training and infrastructure keep pace.
Education stakeholders stress that technology alone will not fix the process. The quality of appraisal still depends on relationships between teachers and their supervisors.
For reforms to work, heads will need to treat appraisal as a conversation about growth, giving fair, evidence-based ratings, writing constructive comments and countersigning promptly unless there is valid reason not to.
Keeping to the calendar
The Commission has long encouraged adherence to the TPAD calendar to prevent last-minute rushes.
Planning meetings are held by the last week of the holiday, professional documents are submitted by the end of the first week of term, lesson observations and gap identification take place between the second and tenth weeks, and rating meetings close out the term.
Curriculum Support Officers have repeatedly said that following this schedule is the only way to ensure tasks are done smoothly and on time.
The current rush shows how far practice remains from that ideal. As the Commission prepares to deploy a more sophisticated platform, observers note, the same habits of delay could undermine its benefits unless schools adopt steadier routines.
A decade-long journey enters a new phase
For schools, the immediate task is simpler than the long-term vision: finalize teachers’ TPADs, compile the summaries and get them to the Sub-County Director through the zonal CSO before the window closes.
For the Commission, the work ahead is larger, involving procurement of a consultant, a review of the TPAD systems, the design of AI training and the roll-out of the revised tool.
How smoothly that transition unfolds will depend on clear communication, adequate training and a genuine commitment to the developmental spirit TPAD was meant to embody.
If AI is to become part of the appraisal process, teachers will expect the new tools to make their work lighter, their ratings fairer and their professional growth more meaningful.
Until then, many will keep doing what they have done for years: racing the clock.
