TSC Promotion 2026: Acting Administrators in Hardship Counties Get Priority.
Teachers who have been running schools in an acting capacity are being awarded extra marks in the Teachers Service Commission’s 2026/2027 promotion exercise, and reporting indicates the Commission is paying particular attention to six Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) counties: Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, Marsabit, Isiolo and Lamu.
The short version: if you have been acting as a principal, deputy principal, headteacher, deputy headteacher, senior master or senior teacher, that service is now worth marks on the interview score sheet — up to 25 out of 100 in the affected grades. The longer you have carried the responsibility, the more you score.
What follows is what TSC has actually published, what has been reported but not published, and what teachers in acting roles should do while the exercise is still running.
What TSC has actually committed to
The scoring framework comes from TSC Circular No. 13/2026, dated 24 July 2026, which sets out promotion guidelines for the 2026/27 financial year. The Commission described it as a standardised scoring guide intended to ensure fair, transparent and merit-based evaluation of all shortlisted candidates, and the guidelines remain valid until 30 June 2027.
The relevant provision is explicit. TSC stated that teachers currently serving in acting or performing roles — including head of institution, deputy head, senior master or senior teacher — shall be awarded additional marks.
That much is national policy and applies to every teacher employed by the Commission competing for the advertised grades.
The six-county focus is a separate matter. It has been reported in Kenyan education media, and the reasoning behind it is well documented, but TSC’s published scoring guide does not contain a county-specific multiplier.
Teachers in Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, Marsabit, Isiolo and Lamu should therefore understand the position as follows: the acting-role marks are guaranteed by circular; the additional county-level prioritisation has been reported and is consistent with TSC’s past practice in ASAL areas, but the Commission has not published a formula showing how it is applied.
That distinction matters if you are planning around it.
How the marks are awarded
Shortlisted candidates are assessed against a 100-mark score sheet. Administrative responsibility and length of stay in the current grade together account for 55 marks, with academic qualifications, professional participation, TPAD performance, age and co-curricular activities making up the rest. K47
| Assessment area | Maximum marks |
|---|---|
| Administrative responsibility and length of stay in current grade (combined) | 55 |
| Age | 25 |
| TPAD performance (average rating over the relevant three-year period) | 10 |
| Co-curricular activities | 5 |
| Highest academic qualification | 3 |
| Professional contributions / assignments | 2 |
Within that 55, the acting-service component is scored on duration:
| Years in a recognised acting or administrative role | Marks |
|---|---|
| 8 years and above | 25 |
| 7 years | 22 |
| 6 years | 19 |
| 5 years | 16 |
| 4 years | 13 |
| 3 years | 10 |
| 2 years | 7 |
Teachers with eight years or more receive the maximum 25 marks, with the scale stepping down to seven marks for two years of service.
Two practical points follow. First, administrative responsibility, length of stay and age alone account for 90 of the 100 available marks — a PhD is worth three marks, so qualifications will not rescue a thin service record. Second, the acting service must be recognised: it counts where the teacher was deployed to the role by the Commission or by the Board of Management, which means the paperwork matters more than the practical reality of who has been running the school.
Why hardship counties are in the frame
The scale of the acting-appointment problem is the real story, and it is larger than most teachers realise.
A TSC report presented to the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Education showed that more than 11,200 public primary and secondary schools are operating with either a head or a deputy in an acting capacity, and that the Commission owes Sh2.2 billion in unpaid acting allowances.
Parliamentary discussions and sector reports put the number of teachers in acting roles nationally at around 99,000, covering principals, deputy principals, headteachers, their deputies and senior teachers.
Where the shortage bites hardest is worth spelling out, because it complicates the six-county framing. The counties with the most schools lacking substantive deputy headteachers are Turkana (387), West Pokot (345), Wajir (292), Mandera (278) and Bungoma (273), with Kitui (230), Garissa (220), Kakamega (217), Homa Bay (216) and Bomet (200) also above 200. For primary schools with acting headteachers, Kitui (147), Machakos (116), Wajir (116) and Mandera (101) lead, while Mombasa (1), Lamu (3), Isiolo (5) and Laikipia (6) are least affected, and Nairobi has no such cases.
Wajir, Mandera and Garissa clearly belong in any leadership-gap intervention. But Isiolo and Lamu are among the least affected counties in the country, while Turkana, West Pokot, Bungoma, Kitui and Kakamega — none of which appear in the six — carry very large numbers of acting administrators. Turkana and West Pokot are themselves ASAL counties and gazetted hardship areas.
The six-county list therefore looks like a hardship-and-retention measure rather than a strict response to where the leadership vacuum is deepest. Both are legitimate policy objectives, but teachers in Turkana, West Pokot, Samburu, Tana River, Baringo and other hardship zones should not assume they are covered by the reported arrangement simply because their county is classified ASAL.
TSC’s own historical ASAL promotion adverts have used a much wider list, covering eighteen counties and sub-counties including Baringo, Kajiado, Kwale, Narok, Samburu, Taita Taveta, Tana River, Turkana and West Pokot, alongside named sub-counties in Homa Bay, Kilifi and Kitui.
There is also a documented retention problem behind all of this. In earlier recruitment cycles, Mandera, Wajir and Garissa failed to attract any applicants for over 200 advertised teaching vacancies across two windows, which TSC attributed to insecurity discouraging non-local applicants. Confirming teachers who are already on the ground is a faster route to stable school management than waiting for outsiders who do not come.
Read Also: TSC Names 16,071 Teachers for World Teachers’ Day 2026 Awards
The exercise in numbers
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Vacancies advertised (Adverts 78–107/2026) | 34,016 across 30 cadres |
| Grades covered | Senior Teacher II (C2) to Chief Principal (D5) |
| Application window | 28 July – 10 August 2026 |
| Applications received | 126,801 |
| Teachers shortlisted | 78,732 |
| Largest single cadre | Senior Teacher II — 13,490 posts |
| Shortlisting notifications | 31 August – 11 September 2026 |
| Primary school interviews | 8 – 15 September 2026 |
| Post-primary, TTC and CSO interviews | 17 – 25 September 2026 |
| Re-advertised administrator posts (108–110/2026) | 1,631, closed 14 September 2026 |
Of more than 126,801 applications received by the August deadline, 78,732 teachers were shortlisted, and the first phase of interviews targeting primary school teachers runs from 8 to 15 September, with TSC having shortlisted 78,732 candidates for positions ranging from Senior Teacher II to Senior Head Teacher.
A note on conflicting figures. Some outlets have reported around 160,000 applications and “over 70,000” shortlisted. The 126,801 and 78,732 figures trace to a TSC brief and are the more consistently corroborated pair; a TSC brief seen by the Nation showed applications were received over 14 days from 28 July to 10 August 2026, meaning nearly four teachers are competing for every vacancy, which matches 126,801 against 34,016. Treat the higher figures with caution until TSC publishes a consolidated report.
On shortlisting, the guidelines introduced a shortlisting ratio of 1:3, meaning three eligible candidates shortlisted for every advertised vacancy, with shortlisted teachers receiving at least seven days’ notice before appearing before panels.
The actual outcome — 78,732 for 34,016 posts — is closer to 2.3 candidates per vacancy, suggesting several cadres did not attract three eligible applicants each.
That shortfall is precisely why TSC re-advertised 1,631 promotional vacancies for school administrators: 1,470 Deputy Headteacher II positions, 132 Deputy Principal III positions and 29 Senior Master II positions, under Adverts 108–110/2026.
Teachers who had already applied for the same positions under the earlier advertisement were not required to apply again, and successful candidates will be deployed to schools where vacancies exist, meaning posting to a different station is possible. That window closed at midnight on 14 September 2026.
Read Also: Why Some Teachers Don’t Get Promoted Even After Meeting TSC’s CPG Requirements
The allowance question is still unresolved
Getting extra marks at interview is not the same as getting paid for work already done, and this is where acting administrators remain exposed.
TSC told the Departmental Committee on Education that the Sh2.2 billion required to cover acting allowances had not been allocated in the proposed 2026/27 budget, which means teachers who have carried administrative duties for months or years may continue to do so without the associated pay.
There is proposed legislation on the point, but it is not yet law. The Teachers Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2024, sponsored by Mandera South MP Abdul Haro, seeks to define the acting period as between two and six months, after which an acting administrator would qualify for substantive appointment.
It also sets out qualifications and remuneration for acting roles and bars a teacher from holding more than one acting position at a time. Moving the Bill, Haro told the House that 3,300 school heads and deputies are serving in acting capacities alongside 99,000 others in various acting roles.
As of the most recent public update, the Bill had passed its Second Reading but had not cleared the Committee of the Whole House, Third Reading or presidential assent — it remains a Bill, not law.
Anyone telling you the allowances are now payable is ahead of the facts. Readers can track its progress through the National Assembly’s official bill tracker.
For teachers in acting roles, the practical implication is straightforward: the promotion exercise currently under way is the more immediate route to a substantive grade and the pay that comes with it than the Bill is.
Transparency: the test the Commission has set itself
TSC has staked this exercise on the credibility of a standardised score sheet, which invites a fair question — will the scoring be applied consistently?
There is a documented record of complaints on process. The Commission’s own May 2026 senior reshuffle drew internal criticism over merit and regional balance.
In a directive dated 18 August 2026, Acting Commission Secretary and CEO Evaleen Mitei told County Directors they do not have authority to appoint officers to substantive positions, whether on an acting, temporary or any other basis, and instead to report vacancies to headquarters for competitive recruitment — a corrective that implies the problem was real.
Read Also: TSC Curriculum Support Officer: Grades, Requirements and Duties Explained (2026)
Claims have also circulated in community forums alleging uneven distribution of recent appointments in Mandera. These have not been substantiated by TSC statements or independent reporting, and this article does not treat them as established. What can be said without speculation is that a scoring system built on verifiable inputs — years acting, years in grade, TPAD averages, certificates — is unusually easy to audit.
Publishing cadre-by-cadre and county-by-county summaries of how marks were awarded would settle most disputes before they take hold. The information required to do so already sits in the Commission’s own score sheets.
What acting administrators should do now
- Confirm your deployment paperwork. Acting service counts where it was formalised by the Commission or the Board of Management. Locate the letter. An undocumented arrangement, however long-standing, is hard to score.
- Count your years precisely. The difference between five and six years of acting service is three marks; between three and eight years, fifteen marks. Know which band you fall into and carry evidence for it.
- Retrieve your TPAD records early. Teachers reported server congestion on the TPAD platform during the September interview window. Download and print your reports for the relevant three-year period rather than relying on access on the day.
- Carry originals. Academic and professional certificates, appointment and deployment letters, TPAD printouts, and evidence of co-curricular or professional contributions such as KNEC examining, KICD panel work or CBC training.
- Check with your Sub-County Director if no SMS arrived. Merit lists were shared with sub-county offices; a missing SMS does not by itself mean you were not shortlisted.
- If you are in a hardship county, prepare on the national criteria. The acting-role marks are in the circular. The county-level prioritisation is reported but unpublished. Build your case on the documented score sheet.
Read Also: KCBE Pilot 2027: What’s Confirmed So Far as Grade 10 Moves to Grade 11
Frequently asked questions
Does the priority arrangement apply to all ASAL counties?
The reported focus names six: Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, Marsabit, Isiolo and Lamu. The acting-role marks in Circular 13/2026 apply nationally to every eligible teacher regardless of county. Teachers in Turkana, West Pokot, Samburu, Tana River, Baringo and other hardship areas are covered by the national provision but are not in the reported six.
Do I still need three years in my current grade?
Yes, as the general rule under the Career Progression Guidelines, together with a satisfactory appraisal rating and no active disciplinary case. Note that re-employed teachers must complete three years of continuous service. For the three re-advertised administrator cadres, low applicant numbers were attributed to the three-year threshold, so check the specific advert requirements rather than assuming.
Does acting service guarantee promotion?
No. It is worth up to 25 marks out of 100 in the affected grades. Length of stay in grade, age and TPAD carry substantial weight alongside it, and with 78,732 candidates competing for 34,016 posts, strong scorers will still miss out.
Will I be paid an acting allowance for past service?
Not currently. The Sh2.2 billion required was not provided for in the 2026/27 budget, and the Bill that would create a statutory entitlement has not been enacted.
Will I be posted elsewhere if promoted?
Possibly. TSC has stated that successful candidates are deployed where vacancies exist, which may be a different station from the current one.
TSC Promotion 2026: Acting Administrators in Hardship Counties Get Priority.
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