TSC Directs County Directors to Roll Out Teacher Training Needs Survey

Why TSC Wants to Hear From Teachers Before Designing the Next Training Cycle

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has launched a nationwide Training Needs Assessment (TNA) targeting teachers and school administrators across Kenya, in a move aimed at sharpening the focus of future professional development programmes.

The initiative, communicated through an internal memo dated 2nd September 2026 and addressed to all County Directors, forms part of the Commission’s broader effort to ensure that teacher training remains relevant, evidence-based, and responsive to real classroom needs.

A Data-Driven Approach to Teacher Development

At the heart of this exercise is the Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning (KPEEL) Programme, through which the TSC is conducting the assessment.

Rather than designing training content in isolation, the Commission is turning to the very people who stand to benefit from it — teachers and school administrators themselves — to identify gaps in their professional knowledge and skills.

The rationale is straightforward: training that is built on actual, documented needs is far more likely to translate into meaningful classroom impact than training designed around assumptions.

By gathering direct feedback from practitioners in the field, the TSC intends to refine and enhance the content of its Teacher Professional Development (TPD) Short Courses, ensuring that future sessions address genuine gaps rather than duplicating what teachers already know or, worse, missing what they most need.

This approach reflects a growing shift within education systems globally — moving away from one-size-fits-all training calendars toward more responsive, needs-driven models of continuous professional development.

What the Assessment Covers

The TNA is not a general survey. It has been carefully scoped to probe four key thematic areas that are central to the Commission’s current priorities:

Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) — the system through which teachers’ performance is formally assessed and tracked over time. Understanding where teachers and administrators struggle to implement TPAD effectively is critical, since the appraisal system underpins accountability and growth across the profession.

Remote Learning Methodologies (RLM) — a reflection of how central digital and distance learning approaches have become in Kenya’s education landscape. As schools continue to integrate blended and remote learning tools, capacity gaps in this area could significantly affect the quality of instruction delivered outside the traditional classroom.

Teacher Induction, Mentorship and Coaching (TIMEC) — the support systems designed to guide new and existing teachers through professional growth. Effective induction and mentorship structures are widely recognised as key to teacher retention and improved practice, particularly for early-career educators.

School Administration and Management — a broader category capturing the leadership and operational skills required of school heads, who must balance instructional leadership with the day-to-day running of their institutions.

The memo notes that the assessment will also capture “other emerging areas,” suggesting the TSC has built some flexibility into the exercise to surface needs that may not fit neatly into these four categories — an important design choice, given how quickly the demands on teachers and school leaders can shift.

Who Is Being Asked to Respond

The TSC has identified three distinct categories of respondents for the exercise, each bringing a different vantage point to the assessment.

The first group comprises Heads of Institutions, specifically officials drawn from the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) and the Kenya Primary School Heads Association (KEPSHA). As the leaders responsible for translating policy into practice at the school level, their input is expected to offer a ground-level perspective on administrative and leadership training gaps.

The second group consists of 106 teachers who were selected by their respective counties and trained as Trainers of Trainers (ToTs) during a June 2026 training session focused on TPAD and RLM. Having already gone through specialised training in these two areas, this group is well positioned to identify where further reinforcement or refinement of content may be needed, both for themselves and for the teachers they will go on to train.

The third group is made up of TIMEC Champions — individuals actively involved in implementing Teacher Induction, Mentorship and Coaching activities within their counties. Their frontline experience with mentorship structures makes them a valuable source of insight into how well current induction and coaching frameworks are functioning, and where they may be falling short.

Together, these three groups form a fairly comprehensive cross-section of the teaching profession’s leadership and support structures, spanning both primary and secondary levels.

Logistics and Timelines

The TNA is being administered entirely online, with respondents required to complete a questionnaire accessible via a shortened link provided in the circular. County Directors have been tasked with the responsibility of cascading this link to all identified respondents within their jurisdictions and actively encouraging participation.

Time is of the essence. The memo sets a firm deadline of 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, 10th September 2026, giving respondents just over a week from the date of the circular to complete the questionnaire. This relatively tight window underscores the urgency the Commission is placing on the exercise, likely tied to broader planning timelines for upcoming TPD course cycles.

The memo, signed by Dr. Mugwuku Nthamburi, Director of Teacher Professional Management, places clear emphasis on the importance of “maximum participation and timely completion.” This language signals that the usefulness of the resulting data will depend heavily on strong response rates — a challenge familiar to any large-scale survey effort, particularly one relying on cascaded communication through multiple layers of county-level coordination.

Why This Matters

Beyond the immediate administrative details, this circular points to a larger institutional commitment: using data, rather than assumption, to shape how Kenya invests in its teaching workforce. The Commission has been explicit that the information gathered will be used to “inform evidence-based decisions on future teacher professional development interventions.”

For a system as large and diverse as Kenya’s basic education sector — spanning primary and secondary levels across all counties — this kind of structured feedback loop is essential. Training resources are finite, and directing them toward the areas where teachers and administrators most need support can make the difference between professional development that genuinely improves classroom outcomes and programmes that simply check a box.

As the 10th September deadline approaches, the success of this exercise will ultimately depend on how effectively County Directors mobilise their identified respondents — heads of institutions, trained ToTs, and TIMEC Champions alike — to engage with the questionnaire. The resulting data stands to shape the direction of teacher professional development in Kenya for the training cycles ahead.