Countdown to 30,000 Promotions: TSC Directs Heads to Submit Details of Acting Teachers
Introduction: A System at Crossroads
The education sector in Kenya is navigating one of its most turbulent and delicate transition periods in recent history.
Weeks after the national budget for the fiscal year was read, a profound sense of uncertainty has gripped the teaching fraternity, particularly affecting an estimated 99,000 educators currently holding administrative positions in an acting capacity.
At the center of this storm is the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which has ordered a fresh, rigorous, and comprehensive audit of all teachers currently performing administrative roles under acting capacities.
This nationwide stocktaking comes hot on the heels of a massive wave of retirements that swept across the public teaching service, notably peaking on June 30, when thousands of veteran educators exited active service.
The commission’s sudden scramble to clean its records and ascertain the exact number of teachers occupying acting positions is not merely a routine bureaucratic exercise.
It is a high-stakes reaction to a compounding financial and legislative puzzle. While Parliament overwhelmingly championed reforms to protect school administrators from long-term exploitation—culminating in the legislative push spearheaded by Mandera South Member of Parliament Abdul Haro under the Teachers Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2024—the financial reality has fallen short.
The TSC’s urgent request for Ksh 2.2 billion to operationalize the payment of special duty allowances to acting administrators was conspicuously omitted from the final national budget allocations.
Consequently, tens of thousands of dedicated educators who run primary and secondary schools as principals, deputy principals, headteachers, and deputy headteachers find themselves stranded in administrative limbo.
They bear the heavy institutional responsibilities of leadership, student discipline, academic performance, and infrastructural management, yet they do so without the legal security or the monetary compensation commensurate with their toil.
The Anatomy of the Acting Crisis: Scope and Magnitude
To understand the depth of the current crisis, one must examine the sheer volume of educators holding the fort in Kenya’s public schools without substantive letters of appointment.
According to data tracking institutional management within the Ministry of Education and the TSC, approximately 99,000 teachers across the country serve in various administrative capacities outside their official substantive job groups.
These acting roles are officially categorized by the TSC to include:
- Principals of secondary schools
- Deputy Principals of secondary schools
- Headteachers of primary and comprehensive schools
- Deputy Headteachers of primary and comprehensive schools
However, beneath this official tier lies a vast gray area of localized institutional arrangements.
Thousands of other teachers act as Senior Teachers, Senior Masters, and Heads of Department (HoDs).
While these positions are vital for the day-to-day running of curriculum delivery and departmental oversight, they are treated by the TSC as internal institutional assignments rather than officially recognized acting administrative positions that qualify for statutory allowances.
For years, the status quo has been characterized by informal deployment letters. Rather than issuing formal acting appointments that trigger financial obligations, sub-county directors and regional education offices often issue vague letters utilizing cautious bureaucratic phrasing.
A typical deployment letter handed to a teacher—such as a C4 deputy headteacher—frequently reads:
“It has been decided that you be assigned duties of a head teacher with effect from… Please note that this assignment is temporary.”
Such administrative instruments deliberately omit any reference to monetary compensation, creating a loophole that successive regimes within the TSC have utilized to manage institutional vacancies without inflating the payroll.
Legislative Interventions: The Push by Parliament and the Impact of the Haro Bill
The systemic exploitation of acting administrators caught the attention of the Thirteenth Parliament, prompting lawmakers to move decisively to restore dignity, fairness, and predictability to the teaching profession.
Sponsored by Mandera South MP Abdul Haro, the Teachers Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was introduced to amend the primary legislation governing the commission—the Teachers Service Commission Act No. 20 of 2012.
The Bill sought to address a fundamental gap in labor practices within the public sector: the tendency to keep teachers in acting capacities indefinitely without financial remuneration or career progression.
Key Provisions of the Teachers Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2024
1) Time-Bound Acting Tenures: The legislation explicitly states that the TSC may appoint a teacher in an acting capacity for a minimum period of thirty (30) days and a maximum period not exceeding six (6) months.
2) Mandatory Substantive Filling: Upon the expiration of the six-month window, the position must be substantively filled, and the incumbent teacher who has successfully discharged those duties qualifies for full confirmation.
3) Strict Qualification Prerequisites: A teacher cannot be appointed to act in a position unless they satisfy all the prescribed statutory qualifications for that specific administrative grade. For instance, a teacher can only act as a secondary school principal if they meet the rigorous professional, academic, and tenure requirements mandated for a substantive principal.
4) One-Position Rule: The law dictates that a teacher appointed to an acting capacity shall only act in one position at a time.
5) Statutory Entitlement to Special Duty Allowance: Section 11 of the principal Act was targeted for amendment by inserting a provision making it mandatory for the commission—in consultation with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC)—to facilitate the payment of special duty allowances to any teacher appointed to perform administrative duties not commensurate with their teaching grades.
During vibrant debates on the floor of the National Assembly, lawmakers passionately defended the bill, describing prolonged acting appointments without pay as a form of modern-day labor exploitation.
Nominated MP Dorothy Ikara noted that teachers had endured prolonged anxiety and frustration, serving in leadership capacities for years without certainty.
Baringo North MP Joshua Makilap similarly argued that denying acting administrators proper recognition erodes their institutional authority and severely damages school discipline and academic morale.
The Budgetary Bottleneck: The Missing Ksh 2.2 Billion
Despite the progressive nature of the legislative amendments and overwhelming parliamentary backing, the transition from paper policy to practical implementation hit a brick wall during the reading of the national budget.
The TSC had projected that rolling out the special duty allowances to the approximately 99,000 affected teachers starting in July 2026 would require an initial injection of Ksh 2.2 billion.
However, when the national fiscal appropriations were finalized, this specific vote was left unfunded.
This funding gap left the commission in a precarious institutional dilemma. On one hand, statutory and moral pressures are mounting to compensate teachers who shoulder heavy administrative burdens.
On the other hand, the commission lacks the budgetary backing from the National Treasury to sustain the wage bill adjustments required for 99,000 simultaneous special duty allowances.
This financial shortfall coincided with broader positive developments in teachers’ remuneration. The government successfully allocated Ksh 8.4 billion to fund the second phase of salary adjustments under the comprehensive 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed between the TSC and teachers’ unions—including the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET).
Under this CBA phase, teachers received structured salary reviews effective July 1, 2026. While basic salaries saw smooth processing, the distinct issue of acting and special duty allowances remained glaringly unaddressed due to the missing financial provisions.
The Fresh Audit: TSC’s Strategic Cleanup and Centralized Control
Faced with mounting pressure from lawmakers, trade unions, and affected educators—and compounded by a wave of retirements at the end of June—the TSC initiated a comprehensive, ground-up audit of all teaching personnel currently operating in administrative capacities.
Objectives of the Audit
Verifying Exact Numbers: The commission wants to eliminate ghost administrative slots and reconcile conflicting data regarding who is actively managing schools versus who holds paper designations.
Assessing Qualifications: With the new legal framework insisting that only qualified personnel can act in specific administrative brackets, the audit seeks to filter out unqualified appointments.
Preparing for the September Promotion Cycle: The audit is strategically timed just weeks before the TSC rolls out a massive teacher promotion exercise. Under the leadership of Acting Chief Executive Officer Eveleen Mitei, the commission secured significant budgetary support to advertise over 30,000 teacher promotion vacancies starting in September.
Centralization of Administrative Deployments
The current audit is the latest step in a tightening web of centralized oversight imposed by the TSC headquarters in Nairobi.
Historically, sub-county and county education directors enjoyed considerable latitude in deploying teachers to fill sudden administrative vacuums created by deaths, resignations, transfers, or retirements.
This decentralization led to widespread anomalies, with some teachers serving in acting capacities for over five years without formal documentation or centralized tracking.
The turning point came when aggrieved educators hauled the commission to court—notably through legal petitions filed in Kisumu—demanding mandatory compensation for years spent serving in acting administrative roles.
When put to task in judicial corridors, the TSC maintained that it could not disburse acting allowances due to the absence of dedicated budgetary allocations and structured legal frameworks at the time.
To stem the tide of litigation and regain total control over the institutional payroll, the TSC effected a radical policy shift.
Through an administrative circular issued on August 13, 2025, the commission stripped county directors of their powers to independently transfer, deploy, or appoint heads and deputy heads of institutions.
The circular instituted a strict rule: No transfer, deployment, or appointment of a head or deputy head of institution—including those in acting capacities—can proceed without the direct stamp of approval from the Commission Board at headquarters.
This centralization ensures that every acting appointment moving forward is tightly monitored, recorded, and audited against available budgetary limits.
Stakeholder Perspectives: Unions, Leadership, and Legal Standing
The friction between teachers’ unions and the employer has historically defined the battle over administrative positions.
The Union Stance: KNUT and KUPPET
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), through Secretary-General Collins Oyuu, has consistently thrown its weight behind legislative interventions to protect acting teachers.
Mr. Oyuu has repeatedly castigated the commission for utilizing semantic maneuvers—such as substituting official acting letters with “assignment of duties” memoranda—to evade paying rightful dues.
“It’s popular labour practice that one shouldn’t act for more than six months. We have many teachers in acting capacity who cannot demand an acting allowance. The TSC is in charge of promotions but it is sub-county directors who appoint teachers in acting roles,” Mr. Oyuu noted.
Similarly, the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) has maintained relentless pressure on the employer.
During stakeholder retreats, KUPPET officials argued that the TSC was guilty of double standards: utilizing teachers to run complex secondary and primary institutions under demanding administrative job groups while denying them special duty allowances under the pretext that SRC circulars had previously sought to regulate or phase out acting appointments.
KUPPET maintains that any deployment that assigns administrative responsibilities must inherently carry commensurate financial compensation.
The TSC Leadership Under Eveleen Mitei
Since assuming office as Acting Chief Executive Officer in June 2025, Dr. Eveleen Mitei has steered the commission through delicate administrative and institutional reforms.
Recognized widely for her extensive background in human resource management and public service leadership—bagging prestigious regional honors such as the East Africa Superwoman Awards for transformative leadership in 2026—Dr. Mitei has prioritized digitization, institutional transparency, and systemic efficiency.
Under her administration, the commission has leveraged technology to streamline teacher transfers (such as the enhanced “Swapmate” transfer portal), manage the absorption of intern teachers into permanent terms, and oversee complex healthcare transitions.
However, the unresolved dilemma of acting administrators remains one of the toughest human resource hurdles on her desk.
When appearing before parliamentary committees to outline the commission’s roadmap, Dr. Mitei and other TSC officials confirmed that the upcoming promotion cycle—slated to kick off aggressively in September following the allocation of promotion funds—will serve as a primary mechanism to regularize career progression paths.
The expectation among education analysts is that the September promotions will heavily prioritize teachers who have languished in acting administrative capacities for extended periods, especially now that legislative changes compel the commission to bring finality to such tenures within a maximum of six months.
Comprehensive Breakdown of Allowances and Legal Frameworks
To fully appreciate the scope of the grievances surrounding acting roles, one must look at how allowances are structured within the Kenyan public teaching service.
The legal battles and legislative reforms have sought to harmonize several key allowances governed by the TSC Code of Regulations and the Code of Federal Labour Standards:
| Allowance Type | Description and Eligibility | Current Status under Recent Reforms |
|---|---|---|
| Special Duty Allowance | Paid to teachers appointed to perform administrative duties not commensurate with their teaching grades, or those stationed in hardship zones. | Subject of intense legislative push; mandated by the Amendment Bill but stalled due to the missing Ksh 2.2B budgetary allocation. |
| Responsibility Allowance | Payable to heads of institutions, deputy heads, and senior teachers in Job Group K and below. | Continues to form part of the structured compensation for substantive holders, though acting personnel have historically been shut out. |
| House Allowance | Paid universally to every teacher based on job grade and geographical categorization (Cluster 1, 2, 3, 4). | Remains steady and unaffected by recent basic salary adjustments under the CBA cycles. |
| Commuter Allowance | Provided to facilitate daily transit to work stations, varied by job grade. | Non-payable during periods of interdiction or suspension, but active for all working personnel. |
| Hardship Allowance | Offset provided to teachers deployed in gazetted arid, semi-arid, and difficult geographical terrains. | Maintained across operational cycles as a critical retention tool for remote schools. |
| Transfer Allowance | Granted when the commission initiates an inter-county or sub-county transfer. | Not payable if the transfer is initiated voluntarily at the request of the teacher. |
| Reader’s Facilitation Allowance | Proposed under recent parliamentary amendments for teachers with visual, hearing, or physical disabilities who require aids. | Designed to promote inclusivity and human dignity in institutional leadership placements. |
The Human Impact: Morale, Succession Planning, and School Leadership
Beyond the numbers, legal clauses, and budget lines lies the human element—the daily reality of teachers caught in the acting capacity trap.
When a teacher is appointed to act as a principal or headteacher without formal recognition of allowance, a psychological and professional toll follows.
School leadership in modern Kenya is exceptionally demanding. Administrators must navigate the rigorous implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) framework, manage swelling student populations in junior secondary schools (JSS), handle stringent financial accountability guidelines from the Ministry of Education, and deal with restive student bodies and expectant parents.
When an educator executes these mammoth responsibilities month after month while drawing a salary equivalent to a classroom teacher or a lower-grade master, disillusionment sets in.
Lawmakers noted during parliamentary debates that prolonged acting appointments severely weaken institutional succession planning.
Younger, dynamic teachers become reluctant to take up leadership mantles when they witness their senior colleagues serving for years in acting capacities without financial or career progression rewards.
Furthermore, the lack of substantive appointments strips administrators of formal authority. Disciplinary actions taken by an acting headteacher can sometimes be legally or socially contested by subordinate staff or parents who view the leader as temporary or lacking full statutory backing from the employer.
Looking Ahead: The September Promotion Window and Path to Resolution
As the dust settles on the recent budget appropriations and the TSC pushes forward with its rigorous nationwide audit of acting personnel, all eyes are now fixed on September.
The scheduled rollout of the over 30,000 promotion vacancies offers a critical light at the end of the tunnel.
Education stakeholders, union representatives, and affected teachers are pushing for the TSC to utilize this massive promotion exercise as an administrative reset button.
By absorbing qualified acting administrators into substantive job groups, the commission can simultaneously solve two persistent crises:
- Complying with the spirit and letter of the new laws restricting acting tenures to six months.
- Clearing the massive backlog of institutional leaders who have managed public schools without substantive titles or equitable remuneration.
However, challenges remain. Unless supplementary budget allocations are fast-tracked by the National Treasury or internal re-allocations are executed by the TSC to cover the delayed Ksh 2.2 billion special duty allowance requirement, the friction surrounding retroactive pay for time spent acting will likely persist.
For the 99,000 teachers currently navigating this uncertain terrain, the fresh audit represents a tense moment of reckoning.
Whether this administrative stocktaking will translate into substantive appointment letters and financial justice in the coming months depends entirely on how the TSC board, the Ministry of Education, and Parliament harmonize their fiscal policies ahead of the September promotion rollout.
Ultimately, restoring stability to the management of Kenya’s schools requires more than just clean audit records; it demands a solemn institutional commitment to honor labor rights, reward administrative excellence, and protect the educators upon whom the future of the nation’s children rests.