TPAD 3 2026: Every Change Teachers Must Know (Four Standards, Per-Subject Scores)

If you are a TSC-registered teacher in Kenya, the appraisal you sat through last term is not the appraisal you will sit through next term. The Teachers Service Commission has confirmed it is rolling out TPAD 3, the third-generation Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development system, to replace the TPAD 2 framework that has been in use since 2016. The changes are not cosmetic. The number of teaching standards has been cut from five to four. Scores are no longer entered per subject cluster — for the first time, teachers handling Creative Arts and Sports, or Religious Education, or any combined-but-distinct subject, will submit separate scores per learning area. The portal itself is moving from tpad2.tsc.go.ke to portal.tsc.go.ke. And the evidence burden is going up: certified professional documents and scanned lesson-observation forms will need to be uploaded directly into the platform rather than kept in the staffroom file. This article walks you through every change in plain English, so when your headteacher calls the first TPAD 3 briefing, you walk in already informed.

The four new teaching standards (down from five)

The biggest single change in TPAD 3 is structural. Under TPAD 2, every teacher in Kenya was appraised against five teaching standards: Professional Knowledge and Application; Time Management; Innovation and Creativity; Learner Protection, Safety, Discipline and Teacher Conduct; Promotion of Co-Curricular Activities and Career Guidance. These standards generated 13 to 15 sub-competencies depending on level of practice, and many teachers found the framework repetitive — the same evidence (your scheme of work, your lesson plans) was being uploaded to support three or four different standards. TPAD 3 consolidates the framework into four standards that map more cleanly to what a classroom teacher actually does in a week. The reduction is not about lowering the bar; the underlying competencies are still there, but they have been re-grouped to eliminate duplicate evidence requests. The reported four are: (1) Effective curriculum delivery, (2) Comprehensive learner-centred environment, (3) Integration of technology in teaching and learning, and (4) Teacher professional growth and development. The framing is significant — Standard 3 explicitly elevates digital practice to a stand-alone standard, which under TPAD 2 was a sub-bullet inside "Innovation and Creativity". If your school still has chalk-and-talk as the default and you have not personally used Mwalimu Plus, the KEC platform, or any structured digital tool in the past term, that is now a measurable gap.

Per-subject scoring — what changed and who it affects most

This is the change most likely to catch teachers by surprise on the first TPAD 3 cycle. Under TPAD 2, a Grade 7 teacher handling Creative Arts and Sports submitted one composite score for the learning area, even though the syllabus actually contains three distinct disciplines (Art & Craft, Music, and Physical Education). The same was true for Religious Education at Junior Secondary — one combined score covered CRE, IRE and HRE materials at the discretion of the teacher. TPAD 3 ends that practice. The portal will now require separate score entries per discipline within a combined learning area. If you teach Creative Arts and Sports, you will submit one score set for Art & Craft, one for Music, and one for Physical Education. If you teach Pre-Technical Studies, expect separate score lines for the design-and-technology, business-studies and computer-science strands the rationalised 2024 curriculum bundles together. The practical implication is that your assessment records — the cumulative formative-assessment marks for each learner — need to be broken down per discipline from day one of the term, not aggregated after the fact. If you are still keeping one mark column per learner per term, this is the week to redesign your assessment tracker.

The portal move: from tpad2.tsc.go.ke to portal.tsc.go.ke

The TPAD 2 platform has lived at tpad2.tsc.go.ke since rollout. TPAD 3 moves to portal.tsc.go.ke, which is being positioned as TSC's consolidated teacher portal — eventually housing TPAD, TMIS, your TSC pay records, your professional documents, and discipline-case status under one login. For the May 2026 transition, the practical implications are: (1) Save and submit any in-progress TPAD 2 records before the cutover date your zonal QASO communicates — anything still in "draft" status when the system is decommissioned may not migrate cleanly; (2) Expect a one-time identity verification step the first time you log into portal.tsc.go.ke, similar to the verification step TSC ran when it rolled out the digital pay-slip portal; (3) If your TSC number is not yet on the platform — for example, if you have just been registered — confirm with your headteacher before the portal switch that your account has been provisioned. You should never wait until the day appraisal is due to discover your account is missing. For background on getting and verifying your TSC number, our step-by-step guide to applying for a TSC number in 2026 is the place to start.

Mandatory uploads: what evidence TPAD 3 will demand

TPAD 2 already collected evidence — schemes of work, lesson plans, professional records — but the upload was inconsistently enforced. Some heads accepted physical files; others uploaded scans. TPAD 3 standardises the evidence expectation. Teachers should expect the following uploads to be mandatory rather than optional: certified copies of academic and professional certificates (KCSE/KCE, TTC/Diploma/Degree, post-graduate qualifications, any CPD certificates earned in the appraisal cycle), signed and dated lesson-observation forms from your head of department or deputy, attendance returns for co-curricular activities you supervise, and evidence of integration of technology — for example, screenshots of digital lessons delivered on KEC, Mwalimu Plus or any approved platform. Two practical tips. First, certify and scan your certificates once, this term, and keep them in a labelled folder on your phone — re-scanning every cycle is the friction that traps most teachers in incomplete uploads. Second, treat lesson-observation forms as a habit, not a once-a-term exercise; invite your HOD to observe one lesson per month and keep the signed form. The evidence trail is what protects you when promotion or transfer decisions are made.

TPAD 3 vs TPAD 2 — quick comparison

What to do this week (a 5-step prep checklist)

You do not need to wait for the official circular to start preparing. Five concrete actions you can take in the next seven days will put you ahead of 80 percent of your colleagues when the switch happens. One, audit your current TPAD 2 record — log into tpad2.tsc.go.ke, screenshot every page, save the PDF of your last completed appraisal, and store these locally. If migration fails or loses data, you will have your own copy. Two, certify your professional certificates this week at the Huduma Centre or with a Commissioner for Oaths and scan them at 300 DPI; the once-and-done principle saves real time. Three, redesign your assessment tracker for per-discipline scoring — if you teach Creative Arts and Sports, your mark sheet for next term should already have separate columns for Art, Music and PE. Four, plan one observable lesson per month and put it on your HOD's calendar now. Five, complete at least one CPD activity this cycle — a free KICD webinar, a TSC-Mwalimu Plus refresher, or one of the free professional courses listed on the CBC lesson planning resources page counts and gives you upload evidence under Standard 4.

Where the official guidance will appear

The two authoritative sources for TPAD 3 are the Teachers Service Commission itself (tsc.go.ke) and the existing TPAD portal (which will redirect during the cutover). Watch for two specific documents: the revised TPAD 3 Teacher's Handbook (the equivalent of the 2018 TPAD 2 Handbook) and the school-level rollout circular addressed to headteachers via the zonal Quality Assurance and Standards Officer (QASO). Until those are published, the working summary above — based on TSC stakeholder briefings and the published TPAD 2 Evaluation Report — is the most reliable picture available. If your school has not yet held a TPAD 3 briefing by the end of June 2026, the polite question to raise is whether the zonal QASO has shared the rollout timeline. For ongoing TSC, KICD and KNEC news for teachers, bookmark our teacher resources blog, and for ready-made lesson plan templates that meet the new evidence-upload requirements head to our lesson plans shop.

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