September Teacher Promotion Interviews: TSC Results Expected in January
Thousands of Kenyan teachers who sat promotion interviews this month now face a wait. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is expected to release results in January for more than 30,000 promotion vacancies, once the September interviews have been fully concluded and the outcomes consolidated.
The exercise is one of the biggest promotion drives the commission has run in years. It follows a long period of stagnation, complaints about the Career Progression Guidelines (CPG), and allegations of irregularities in earlier promotion cycles.
A Ksh 2 Billion Promotion Drive
TSC advertised 34,016 promotion slots, funded by a Ksh 2 billion allocation in the 2026/2027 financial year budget. Teachers applied online.
The scale is significant. In its response to complaints after the 2025 promotions, the commission admitted that over the previous ten years it had conducted promotion interviews only three times.
That irregularity, it said, created a large backlog of eligible teachers and widespread stagnation across all cadres. The current budget allocation is the kind of dedicated funding the commission had asked Parliament to provide.
How the Interviews Were Conducted
Interviews for primary school teachers ran for six days, from 8th to 15th September 2026. They were carried out at regional and county levels by field directors.
Interviews for post-primary teachers, meaning those in secondary schools and Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs), and for Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) ran for seven days, from 17th to 25th September 2026.
This second phase was spearheaded by the Director of Staffing, working alongside regional, county and sub-county directors.
126,000 Applications, 78,732 Shortlisted
TSC received about 126,000 applications, but only 78,732 teachers were shortlisted and invited to interviews. The commission’s scoresheet is unforgiving, and around 47,000 applicants did not make it past shortlisting.
Demand still far outstrips supply. Even with over 34,000 slots, the shortlisted candidates outnumber the vacancies by more than two to one, before counting those who were locked out at the application stage.
The Readvertised Vacancies and the Scrapped Three-Year Rule
The drive did not go entirely to plan. TSC later readvertised 1,631 vacancies after too few teachers applied.
The commission blamed the rigid CPG requirement that teachers must have served at least three years in their current grade before applying.
The commission responded by revising the rule and lowering the requirement to two years. It was also under pressure from P1 teachers who had been deployed to junior schools and were barred from applying by the same requirement. For many of them the rule was a bureaucratic barrier rather than a measure of merit.
The 1,631 readvertised vacancies span three promotional posts:
- Advert No. 108/2026, Deputy Principal III (Regular): Graded D1 on T-Scale 11, with 132 vacancies. These target teachers moving into deputy leadership roles in secondary and post-primary institutions.
- Advert No. 109/2026, Senior Master I: Also D1 on T-Scale 11, with 29 vacancies. This is a senior teaching and departmental leadership role, typically requiring a strong record of both instructional delivery and administrative contribution.
- Advert No. 110/2026, Deputy Headteacher II (Regular): Graded C4 on T-Scale 9, this is by far the largest category with 1,470 vacancies.
Together, the three adverts account for all 1,631 positions under readvertisement. TSC is expected to conclude interviews for these slots in early October, so the outcomes can be consolidated with the September interviews before results are released.
Where the Vacancies Are
The promotion slots cut across the teaching service, from classroom teachers to principals.
Senior Teacher and Secondary Teacher cadres. The largest single block is Advert No. 107/2026 for Senior Teacher II (Regular and SNE) at Grade C2, with 13,490 vacancies. Advert No. 106/2026 offers 4,210 slots for Senior Teacher I (Regular and SNE) at Grade C3, and Advert No. 105/2026 offers 203 slots for Secondary Teacher I, also at C3.
Deputy headteacher and senior master cadres. At Grade C4, Advert No. 101/2026 covers 3,075 Deputy Headteacher II (Regular) posts and Advert No. 102/2026 covers 206 for the SNE stream. Advert No. 104/2026 for Senior Master IV (Regular and SNE) has 5,956 vacancies, and Advert No. 103/2026 offers 517 Senior Lecturer IV posts. At Grade C5, Advert No. 97/2026 offers 1,865 Deputy Headteacher I posts and Advert No. 98/2026 offers 201 in SNE. Advert No. 100/2026 provides 1,665 Senior Master III positions, Advert No. 99/2026 has 44 Senior Lecturer III slots, and Advert No. 96/2026 has 69 Curriculum Support Officer II posts.
Upper grades. At D1, Advert No. 88/2026 offers 222 Senior Master II slots and Advert No. 86/2026 offers 15 Senior Lecturer II posts. Advert No. 85/2026 offers 891 Deputy Principal II (Regular) vacancies at Grade D2.
Principals. Advert No. 82/2026 has 706 Principal (Regular) positions at Grade D3, alongside 7 TTC posts (Advert No. 83/2026) and 6 SNE posts (Advert No. 84/2026). At D4, Senior Principal slots number 148 in the regular stream (Advert No. 80/2026) and 7 in TTCs (Advert No. 81/2026). At the top, Chief Principal at D5 has 54 regular slots (Advert No. 78/2026) and 7 for TTCs (Advert No. 79/2026).
For the vast majority of teachers, the real competition is in the middle grades, where thousands of vacancies attract tens of thousands of applicants. The top positions have very few slots, and competition there will be fierce.
What Decides Who Gets Promoted
The TSC scoresheet still treats age as the biggest single factor in promotion decisions. Two other factors carry significant weight: the period a teacher has served in their current grade, and whether they have acted in an administrative position.
That structure favours long-serving teachers who have been stuck in one grade for years. It also means that younger teachers, however strong their performance, may struggle to compete, and teachers who never got the chance to act in administrative roles are at a disadvantage.
Since acting appointments are often made at the discretion of school heads and field officers, critics argue that this criterion can quietly reward proximity to power rather than merit.
A History of Complaints
The waiting period this time is not just administrative. It is loaded with distrust. Earlier promotion exercises were marred by allegations of discrimination and corruption, and teachers who had stagnated for years under the CPG were frustrated and vocal.
TSC did not stay silent. In its response following the 2025 promotion complaints, the commission acknowledged that the stagnation resulted from “several compounding factors accumulated over time.” On the CPG itself, it made a rare public apology: “We extend our apologies to teachers and the nation for the negative outcomes resulting from the implementation of the Career Progression Guidelines.”
It added that while the framework was introduced with reformative intentions, it “has inadvertently led to the stagnation of thousands of teachers.”
On corruption, the commission said an audit of the promotion list had revealed “unexplainable anomalies, including cases where teachers with minimal years of service were elevated to higher job groups.”
Such promotions, it said, did not align with the established criteria. TSC removed the affected individuals from the list and re-advertised the positions “to uphold fairness and meritocracy.” It added: “corruption has no place in the teaching service.”
Those are strong words, and teachers will measure the January results against them. If the lists withstand scrutiny, the promises will carry weight. If anomalies resurface, the credibility damage could be severe.
The Unfinished CPG Reforms
The commission also committed to reviewing the CPG. It said it would eliminate Job Groups C5 and D2 and merge them with adjacent grades to streamline the promotion process.
It is worth noting that the 2026 adverts still list vacancies at C5 and D2, because the restructuring has not yet taken effect and the current exercise is running under the existing structure.
The commission also introduced new job groups, T1, T2 and T3, to give non-administrative teachers popularly known as classroom teachers a path beyond Job Group C4.
In its words, “We no longer wish to peg higher job groups exclusively to administrative duties,” and the change “opens up opportunities in the upper cadres for all deserving teachers based on merit and experience.”
There is a catch. The new CPG is with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), which must complete a job evaluation exercise before it can be approved for use.
The new CPG is expected to start possibly in July next year. Classroom teachers who hoped the new job groups would unlock their careers immediately will have to wait longer.
What Teachers Should Expect in January
The January timeline reflects the volume of work. TSC has to consolidate outcomes from primary-level interviews at regional and county levels, post-primary and CSO interviews led by the Director of Staffing, and the readvertised slots that will only be interviewed in early October.
Merit lists must then be compiled, verified and cleared, ideally with extra care given the earlier audit findings.
Teachers can reasonably expect the following:
- Results by cadre and county. Given the scale, TSC may publish results in batches or by advert number.
- Scrutiny of the lists. Teachers’ unions, school heads and teachers themselves will compare outcomes against the scoresheet criteria of age, time served in the current grade and acting appointments.
- Complaints and appeals. Every previous cycle produced petitions, and this one will probably follow. How quickly TSC handles them will shape public trust.
- Budget pressure. The Ksh 2 billion allocation must cover the salary adjustments that come with more than 34,000 promotions, so implementation dates will matter to teachers awaiting their new pay.
Conclusion
The September interviews mark a serious attempt by TSC to clear a backlog that has frustrated teachers for a decade. The numbers show both progress and the scale of the problem: 34,016 slots, 126,000 applications, and 78,732 shortlisted candidates fighting over the vacancies.
The revision of the three-year rule to two years shows the commission can respond to pressure when the rules produce bad outcomes.
But the real test comes in January. After a public apology, an audit that exposed anomalies, and promises of transparency, TSC has set a high bar for itself.
Teachers will be watching whether the results reflect merit, whether the corruption allegations of the past stay in the past, and whether the wait for the T1, T2 and T3 job groups ends with genuine career progression for classroom teachers. For thousands of teachers, January will show whether the promotion system has really changed.