- TSC has proposed a revised Career Progression Guidelines framework that would reduce career levels from 56 to 43, released for stakeholder engagement on June 9, 2026.
- The proposal has introduced a common “Teacher” grading system allowing classroom teachers to progress professionally without becoming administrators, dividing progression into common-cadre and competitive grades.
- The framework has been set to proceed to a Job Evaluation process involving TSC and SRC, which will determine the actual remuneration attached to the new grades, with 2028 identified as the critical year for implementation.
For Kenyan teachers who have spent years waiting for the next rung on the career ladder, the Teachers Service Commission’s proposed new Career Progression Guidelines could fundamentally change what it means to build a teaching career. But there is a catch. The new framework may redesign the ladder, merge grades and open a professional route for classroom teachers to rise without becoming school administrators, yet the value of that transformation will ultimately be measured by something teachers will see every month: their payslips.
That is why 2028 is emerging as a critical year. The proposed revised Career Progression Guidelines (CPG), released for stakeholder engagement on June 9, 2026, are intended to address longstanding concerns over career stagnation, lengthy progression structures and the close connection between promotion and administrative appointments. However, the proposed framework does not by itself determine the salaries attached to the new grades. That question will come through the Job Evaluation process involving TSC and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), placing the future of teachers’ remuneration at the intersection of professional reform and public-sector affordability.
The existing CPG, introduced in 2018 following the 2016 Job Evaluation, created a detailed hierarchy stretching from T-Scale 5 for a Primary Teacher II to T-Scale 15 for a Chief Principal. Over the years, teachers have navigated a complicated structure containing positions such as senior teachers, senior masters, deputy principals, senior lecturers and principals. The proposed framework seeks to simplify that arrangement: across teaching and curriculum-support cadres, the number of career levels is proposed to fall from 56 to 43. The primary regular teaching cadre would move from eight levels to six, while junior and senior school teaching would reduce from nine to seven levels, with teacher-training and curriculum-support structures also streamlined. The underlying idea is straightforward: fewer rungs should mean a less cumbersome journey to the top, but fewer grades will only improve teachers’ careers if progression through those grades is actually accessible.
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Perhaps the most consequential feature of the proposal is the attempt to separate professional teaching progression from school administration. Under the proposed structure, teachers would be identified through a common “Teacher” grading system, with Teacher 1 representing the highest level. Administrative responsibilities would continue to be attached to designated positions, but professional advancement would no longer have to mean abandoning classroom teaching. That could alter a longstanding perception within the profession: that the surest route to career advancement is to leave the classroom and enter management. A highly accomplished classroom teacher could instead pursue professional progression while continuing to focus on teaching and learning, a shift particularly significant under competency-based education, where effective classroom practice requires increasingly sophisticated professional skills.
The proposal divides progression into common-cadre and competitive grades, with the common-cadre grades providing a structured route through the early stages of a career, while higher grades would be competitive. That distinction could become one of the most closely watched aspects of the reform, since the word “competitive” immediately raises practical questions: what criteria will determine success, will classroom performance carry significant weight, how will qualifications, experience, leadership and professional development be assessed, how many positions will be available, and what mechanism will exist for teachers who believe a promotion decision was unfair? Until those questions are answered, the promise of merit-based progression remains incomplete.
The proposed structure also seeks to create clearer entry points based on professional qualifications. Primary teachers holding a Primary Teacher Education certificate would enter at Teacher 9, while diploma holders would enter at Teacher 8. In secondary education, diploma holders would enter at Teacher 8 and degree holders at Teacher 7, with graduates trained at the Kenya Institute of Special Education having their own proposed entry arrangement. The changes respond to a longstanding concern that teachers with different qualifications can find themselves navigating career structures that do not always provide a sufficiently clear relationship between qualifications and professional progression. But entry grade is only the beginning; the bigger question is how qualifications will influence progression after entry.
For teachers already in service, the transition could be more consequential than the entry structure. The proposed framework maps existing positions into the new grades, with several current positions being merged. In secondary schools, existing Secondary Teacher grades would move into the proposed Teacher structure, with Senior Masters, Deputy Principals and Principals similarly aligned with new grades. In primary schools, Primary Teachers, Senior Teachers, Deputy Headteachers, Headteachers and Senior Headteachers would undergo corresponding mapping. Grade consolidation could simplify the structure, but it also creates a delicate transition question: what happens to teachers who have spent years earning their existing grades; will their service be fully recognised; will anyone lose an advantage; will merged grades carry the remuneration of the higher or lower existing grade; and will teachers receive a financial benefit immediately, gradually or not at all? These are questions the final implementation framework will need to answer.
This is where the proposed reform moves beyond TSC headquarters and into the domain of the SRC. After approval of the CPG, the framework is expected to proceed to Job Evaluation, with job descriptions forming part of the material considered. The evaluation will determine the relative worth of the jobs and provide the basis for establishing their remuneration implications, with clinics and consultations to follow before the financial implications are communicated and the final results made known to teachers. This makes the Job Evaluation crucial: a beautifully redesigned career ladder can exist on paper without automatically producing a corresponding salary increase. The decisive question will be what the new grades are worth.
Teachers are entering this process at a time when public-sector remuneration is under intense scrutiny. SRC has repeatedly emphasised the importance of affordability and sustainability in determining public-sector remuneration, and the Commission’s recent decisions concerning remuneration for some county government officials demonstrate the extent to which fiscal sustainability can affect implementation of proposed pay changes. That does not mean SRC has rejected the teachers’ proposed CPG; it has not. Nor does it establish that teachers’ new grades will be delayed, reduced or phased. What it does demonstrate is that the financial side of any major public-sector restructuring cannot be separated from the national wage bill. For TSC, this matters enormously because teachers constitute one of Kenya’s largest public-sector workforces, and even relatively modest adjustments applied across a large workforce can have substantial financial implications.
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As stakeholder engagement and subsequent implementation processes continue, teachers should focus on the details that will determine whether the reform changes their working lives: how much each grade will pay, how long teachers will remain in each grade, what exactly will determine competitive promotion, how many posts will be available, whether classroom performance will be adequately recognised, how existing teachers will transition into the new structure, whether qualifications will continue to influence access to higher grades, and whether the reform will create genuine professional progression without administrative appointment. These questions are more important than the names attached to the grades.
The proposed CPG represents a significant attempt to rethink how teachers progress through the profession. Its most important promise is not simply fewer grades, but the possibility of creating a teaching career in which professional excellence in the classroom can be recognised alongside administrative leadership, a significant shift in the architecture of the teaching profession. But teachers should separate promise from outcome. The CPG is a framework. The Job Evaluation will determine the relative value of the jobs. The remuneration process will determine what those grades ultimately mean financially. And implementation will determine whether teachers experience the reform in practice. That is why 2028 matters. The real verdict will not be found in the number of grades removed from a document. It will be found in the promotion criteria, the number of teachers who actually progress, the opportunities available to classroom professionals and, ultimately, what appears on teachers’ payslips. For now, teachers have a new career blueprint to examine. The next question is whether that blueprint will become a genuine career transformation.
By Hillary Muhalya
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