Special Needs Teachers vs TSC: The Grading and Promotion Row Explained.
Special Needs Education (SNE) teachers across Kenya say they have been left behind in a grading system that everyone — including Parliament, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), and President William Ruto himself — has agreed needs fixing. The problem is that almost none of the fixes have actually happened.
In Elgeyo Marakwet, Laikipia, Meru, Eldoret and Mbita, SNE teachers have spent 2026 holding demonstrations, issuing ultimatums and pressing the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for the same thing: implementation of grading corrections that regulators and lawmakers already approved.
Here’s what’s actually happening, what the rules say, and where things stand.
Why SNE Teachers Say They’ve Stagnated
SNE teachers work with learners who have disabilities or additional learning needs, often in dedicated special schools or specialised units attached to mainstream schools. The role demands extra training, at the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) or similar institutions, and teachers say it comes with additional physical, emotional and technical demands that ordinary classroom teaching does not.
Their central complaint is simple: many have spent decades in the same TSC job group, watching colleagues in regular schools get promoted while their own cadre is repeatedly skipped or shortchanged. Veteran educators with 25–30+ years of service report retiring, or nearing retirement, without ever advancing beyond the grade they started in.
Layered on top of that is a second grievance — when SNE teachers are promoted, they’re often reassigned to regular schools rather than kept in specialised institutions. Teachers argue this strips special schools of their most experienced staff and breaks the specialised bonds built with vulnerable learners over years.
The Grading Structure: What Changed in 2018 — and Why It Still Matters
To understand the current dispute, it helps to know how SNE grading actually works.
In 2018, TSC introduced the Common Establishment Grades (CEG) system, following a job evaluation by the SRC. The scheme was formally backdated to November 8, 2017, collapsing three separate teacher schemes of service into one structure with clearer salary scales and career paths.
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| Cadre | Number of Grades |
|---|---|
| SNE — Primary schools | 5 |
| SNE — Secondary schools | 8 |
| SNE — TVET institutions | 8 |
| KISE lecturers | 8 |
That backdating date — November 2017 — is exactly why teachers keep demanding that any correction be applied retroactively “to 2017.” It isn’t an arbitrary number; it’s the effective date of the grading framework they say was never properly applied to their cadre in the first place.
Public Petition No. 76 of 2023: What Parliament Actually Recommended
In 2023, academician Dr Robert Njunukha Wekesa tabled a petition in the National Assembly alleging discrimination by TSC in how SNE teachers’ careers progressed, and specifically pointing to a mismatch between teachers’ payroll titles and what the 2018 Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) actually provided for.
Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee examined the matter and recommended that TSC, working with the relevant Public Service ministry, align SNE grades and job titles with the 2018 guidelines within six months of adoption, and backdate that implementation to 2017 so affected teachers could receive the benefits owed to them.
The National Assembly formally adopted the committee’s report on February 24, 2026, following debate held on February 18, 19 and 24 of that year. Given that adoption date, the six-month implementation window Parliament set would have lapsed by late August 2026.
As of early September 2026, teachers say that deadline has come and gone with no action. SNE teachers led by their national chairman addressed the media in Meru, calling on the National Assembly’s Committee on Implementation to force TSC’s hand.
President Ruto’s September 2025 Promise — and Why It Stalled
A separate but related commitment came from President Ruto himself. At a State House engagement with teacher unions on September 13, 2025 — dubbed “Waalimu na Rais” — the President directed that SNE teachers be moved up an additional job group.
Nearly a year later, that promise remains unfulfilled. The Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) says the presidential directive had still not been implemented eleven months on, and is pressing TSC and the National Treasury to release the funding needed to act.
There’s an added wrinkle here worth noting for readers trying to reconcile the numbers: KUSNET Secretary-General James Torome has pointed out that the 2018 CPG itself provided for SNE teachers to move up two job groups, not one — meaning even full implementation of Ruto’s September 2025 pledge would only partially close the gap teachers say they’re owed. That two-grade figure also lines up with what teachers have separately cited from the original 2017 TSC-SRC job evaluation.
KUSNET has also raised a linked demand: a review of the roughly KSh 20,000 monthly allowance paid to teachers who guide colleagues working with learners with disabilities, which unions say was also discussed at the same State House meeting.
A New CPG Framework — Signed, But Not Yet in Force
There has been genuine movement, even if it hasn’t reached teachers’ payslips yet. On June 18, 2026, KUSNET and TSC signed a revised 2026 Career Progression Guidelines framework at TSC headquarters, intended to replace the widely criticised 2018 CPG.
The new framework brings KISE and Kenya Institute for the Blind (KIB) lecturers into TSC’s standard grading structure for the first time, under Grades 5 to 1, and formally incorporates Special Needs Education Curriculum Support Officers into Grades 3 to 1. It also allows SNE teachers to advance either through classroom teaching or school administration all the way to the top grade of Teacher 1, mirroring the path already open to mainstream teachers.
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Crucially, though, the signed document has been forwarded to the SRC for job evaluation, and cannot take effect until that process concludes — which is part of why teachers on the ground still describe their situation as unresolved. A signed agreement is not the same as money in a payslip.
Elgeyo Marakwet: A Local Flashpoint
Elgeyo Marakwet has become one of the more visible fronts in this dispute. Special school teachers in the county recently staged a demonstration in Iten town and issued the county government a January 2027 deadline to address delayed promotions, risk allowances and other welfare concerns, warning of a strike if nothing changes. The protest also drew attention to a shortage of dedicated secondary schools for learners with special needs in the county, forcing some older learners to seek places in neighbouring counties.
Individual teachers in the county have described the personal cost of the stalemate. One veteran educator, Jane Kiplagat, who has taught children with disabilities in Elgeyo Marakwet for 31 years, has spoken publicly about feeling “forgotten” by the promotion system and has echoed the wider call for backdated implementation to 2017 — a figure that, as explained above, tracks directly with the CEG scheme’s original effective date rather than being an arbitrary ask.
A note on sourcing: county-level accounts like this circulate mainly through local reporting and direct testimony rather than national coverage, so while the broader petition, job-evaluation and CPG facts above are independently confirmed through multiple national sources, individual teachers’ personal accounts couldn’t be separately cross-verified beyond what was shared. They’re presented here as testimony, not as independently confirmed fact.
The Union Representation Problem
A recurring complaint alongside the grading dispute is that SNE teachers feel unrepresented at the negotiating table. In Laikipia, teachers have publicly questioned salary deductions being remitted to KUSNET, insisting they were never consulted in the election of the union’s representatives.
This matters because CPG negotiations — including the June 2026 framework — are conducted between TSC and recognised unions. If a meaningful share of SNE teachers don’t feel genuinely represented by the union negotiating on their behalf, they have limited formal channels to influence the outcome, which helps explain why direct petitions to Parliament and appeals to the President have become parallel tracks alongside union negotiations.
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What SNE Teachers Are Demanding
Pulling the various strands together, teachers’ core demands are:
- Full implementation of Public Petition No. 76 of 2023, including alignment of SNE grades and job titles with the 2018 CPG.
- Backdating of any correction to 2017, matching the CEG scheme’s original effective date, so teachers recover years of underpayment.
- Implementation of the September 2025 presidential directive moving SNE teachers up a job group — and, per KUSNET, eventually the full two-grade adjustment teachers say the 2017 job evaluation and 2018 CPG actually supported.
- Retention within specialised institutions rather than automatic transfer to mainstream schools upon promotion.
- Genuine representation in the unions and forums negotiating on their behalf.
- A review of the special needs allowance, alongside faster capitation disbursement to support SNE units and, in some counties, a dedicated risk allowance.
What Happens Next
Three processes are running in parallel, and readers tracking this story should watch all three:
- The SRC job evaluation of the June 2026 CPG framework — its outcome will determine actual grades and pay scales, and has no confirmed completion date.
- Parliament’s Committee on Implementation, which SNE teachers have asked to enforce the lapsed six-month deadline from the February 2026 petition adoption.
- TSC and Treasury funding decisions, since any job-group upgrade requires a budget allocation — the same bottleneck that has already slowed TSC’s broader 2026/2027 promotion exercise for mainstream teachers.
Until at least one of these produces a funded, gazetted outcome, expect continued demonstrations and public pressure from SNE teachers and KUSNET.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why do SNE teachers want backdating to 2017 specifically?
Because that’s the effective date TSC assigned to the Common Establishment Grades scheme when it was introduced in 2018. Teachers argue the grading corrections owed to them should follow the same effective date as everyone else’s grading structure.
Has President Ruto’s promotion promise been implemented?
Not as of early September 2026, more than a year after it was made at the September 2025 State House meeting. Unions continue to press TSC and the Treasury on it.
What’s the difference between the 2023 petition and the 2025 presidential promise?
The petition is a formal parliamentary process addressing grade/title misalignment under the existing 2018 CPG. The presidential promise is a separate pledge of an additional job group. KUSNET treats both as related but distinct, and says even the presidential pledge alone doesn’t fully cover what the original 2018 CPG and 2017 job evaluation recommended.
Is there a new grading framework coming?
Yes — a revised 2026 CPG was signed by TSC and KUSNET in June 2026, but it still needs SRC job evaluation before it can take effect.
Special Needs Teachers vs TSC: The Grading and Promotion Row Explained.
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