- The writer has argued that experienced teacher unionists should be encouraged to apply, citing their first-hand understanding of labour relations and teacher welfare.
- Wilson Sossion’s appointment as TSC commissioner has demonstrated that union experience does not disqualify individuals from governance roles within the Commission.
The High Court on September 17 ordered the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to undertake a fresh recruitment process for its Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, after quashing the earlier recruitment exercise. Justice Dorah Chepkwony found that aspects of the 2025 process did not comply with the Commission’s recruitment procedures, including the application window and omission of remuneration details. The court, however, upheld the statutory requirement that the holder of the office must have a degree in education and at least 10 years’ experience in the education sector.
The fresh process presents the country with another opportunity to ask a fundamental question: who should lead the institution responsible for managing Kenya’s teaching service? This time, seasoned teacher union officials should seriously consider applying.
The argument is not that every union official is automatically qualified to become TSC chief executive, nor that experience within the Commission’s Secretariat is without value. Rather, it is that the leadership of an institution whose decisions directly affect hundreds of thousands of teachers should draw from a broad pool that includes people who have spent years representing, negotiating with and advocating for those teachers.
For decades, teacher unions have been an important part of Kenya’s education landscape. Their leaders have been involved in collective bargaining, remuneration negotiations, disciplinary disputes, working conditions, professional welfare and education policy. These are not peripheral matters to the work of the TSC; they are central to the relationship between the Commission and the teaching workforce. A seasoned unionist consequently comes to the table with a perspective that is not easily acquired from administrative service alone.
A senior official who has spent years inside the TSC Secretariat may possess extensive institutional knowledge, familiarity with government procedures and valuable experience in administration. That expertise matters. But institutional familiarity and an understanding of the lived experience of teachers are not necessarily the same thing, and the CEO’s office requires both.
The person at the top of the Commission must understand the machinery of government while also appreciating what happens when policies reach the classroom. They must understand regulations and budgets, but also the consequences of delayed promotions, disciplinary disputes, staffing shortages, transfers and disagreements over terms of service. This is where experienced teacher unionists can bring a different dimension to the table. A union leader who has spent years across the negotiating table with employers has witnessed the concerns of teachers at close range, and is likely to have participated in negotiations where statistics, policy documents and legal provisions meet the practical realities of teachers and schools. That experience does not make a unionist inherently superior to a Secretariat professional, but it does make union leadership a legitimate and potentially valuable route to consideration for the CEO position.
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The Sossion Factor
The recent appointment of former Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion as a TSC commissioner has added an interesting dimension to this conversation. President William Ruto nominated Sossion and education administrator Antonina Lentoijoni as TSC commissioners in July, and both subsequently received parliamentary approval and were sworn in for six-year terms.
Sossion’s arrival is significant because he spent years on the other side of the table from the Commission. He served as KNUT Secretary-General from 2013 to 2021, having risen through the union’s structures after beginning his career as a teacher. His years in union leadership exposed him to collective bargaining, remuneration, labour relations and disputes involving teachers and their employer.
During his parliamentary vetting, Sossion argued that his long experience representing teachers could be an advantage rather than a conflict, pointing to his understanding of teachers’ working conditions, labour relations and education policy. His presence on the Commission has consequently generated optimism among sections of the teaching fraternity that someone with first-hand experience of the concerns raised by teachers is now part of the institution’s decision-making structure.
That optimism should nevertheless be accompanied by realistic expectations. Sossion is now a commissioner, not a union official. His responsibility is to the constitutional mandate of the Commission and the teaching service as a whole, and his effectiveness should ultimately be judged by the decisions he makes in that office, rather than by his previous union credentials. Yet his appointment demonstrates an important principle: experience representing teachers does not, by itself, disqualify someone from participating in the governance of the institution responsible for the teaching service.
Why Exclude the Union Experience?
There is a long-standing tendency in public institutions to regard people who have worked within the institution as the natural candidates for its top administrative positions. There is logic in this: an insider understands the systems, personnel, regulations and institutional culture, and a CEO recruited from within the Secretariat can potentially begin work with considerable knowledge of the organisation.
But there can also be value in bringing a different institutional perspective. The TSC CEO is not merely an administrator. The office sits at the intersection of education policy, human-resource management, labour relations, public finance and constitutional governance, and the successful candidate must therefore demonstrate more than familiarity with internal procedures.
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A candidate from the union movement who meets every statutory and professional requirement should be given the same opportunity to compete as an experienced Secretariat official. The contest should ultimately be about qualifications, leadership record, education-sector experience, integrity, management ability, understanding of labour relations and the ability to execute the Commission’s mandate. The recruitment process should not create an informal presumption that the next CEO must come from within the Secretariat.
A Chance for the Unions
Teacher unions, too, have a responsibility in this moment. If they believe that experienced unionists have something meaningful to offer at the highest administrative level of the TSC, then qualified former and current union officials should be encouraged to apply. This does not mean turning the CEO recruitment into a contest between the TSC and teacher unions. The Commission remains an independent constitutional institution, and its chief executive must serve the Commission’s mandate rather than a union agenda. What it means is opening the recruitment field to a wider range of professionals with deep experience in the education sector.
Kenya has produced teacher union leaders who have spent decades dealing with education policy, labour law, negotiations, teacher welfare and public administration, some serving teachers at branch, county, national and international levels. If they satisfy the legal and professional requirements, there is no obvious reason why they should not put their names forward.
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The High Court’s decision has effectively reopened the door. Now is the time for accomplished teacher unionists to walk through it. The fresh recruitment should be transparent, competitive and based on merit: Secretariat officials should compete, education administrators should compete, experienced unionists should compete, and other qualified education-sector professionals should compete. Let the strongest evidence of leadership, competence and suitability determine the outcome.
For teachers, the most important issue is not where the eventual CEO worked previously. It is whether that person can understand the profession, manage the institution effectively, uphold the law and build a constructive relationship between the Commission and the teachers whose careers it regulates. The fresh recruitment gives the country another opportunity to get that choice right.
By Henry Ochokorodi
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