Teachers could be back on the picket line just days before schools reopen for the third term, after the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), demanding it promote the remaining 16,000 teachers out of the 50,000 President William Ruto had promised.
The union gave TSC until August 14 to act, warning that failure to do so would trigger a nationwide strike right on the eve of the new term.
Speaking on Thursday, KUPPET Secretary General Akello Misori accused the commission of quietly scaling back the President’s directive, pointing out that only 34,000 promotion slots have actually been advertised so far, well short of the figure Ruto himself announced.
“The Commission’s failure to advertise the exact number which the president himself had pronounced, 50,000 vacancies which he mandated on September 13, 2025. If TSC does not do justice to this, then they are calling back industrial action,” Misori said.
His concerns were echoed by KUPPET National Chairperson Omboko Milemba, who noted that the discrepancy was particularly hard to swallow given how long teachers had already waited for any movement on promotions.
“Remember, initially, promotions for teachers had been halted for about 10 years. But when the president tells TSC to recruit over 50,000 teachers, now they are only advertising 34,000 teachers, that clearly indicates something,” Milemba said.
Should the ultimatum lapse without a response from TSC, the strike is set to begin on Friday, August 14, barely ten days before learners are due back in class.
That timing puts the entire third term at risk. School is scheduled to run from Monday, August 24 through to Friday, October 23, 2026, right up to the start of national examinations, meaning any prolonged standoff could eat significantly into learning time at one of the most critical points in the school calendar.
The threat of a strike comes hot on the heels of what TSC had billed as one of its biggest recruitments pushes this year.
On July 28, the commission advertised 54,016 teaching vacancies in total, 34,016 of them earmarked for promotions among serving teachers, with the remaining 20,000 set aside for post-primary teachers moving into Junior School positions.
TSC has said the recruitment drive is meant to plug staffing gaps in schools and support the rollout of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
KUPPET, however, isn’t satisfied. The union insists the numbers simply don’t add up to what was promised, leaving roughly 16,000 teachers who were expecting promotions still waiting, and, in the union’s view, without any clear explanation as to why.
Unless TSC moves to advertise and fill those outstanding positions within the seven-day window, KUPPET says its members will have no choice but to down their tools.
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