Lecturers during a past strike.Lecturers in public universities have once again downed their tools, paralysing learning barely weeks after studies for the 2025–26 academic year resumed.
The nationwide strike, declared on September 17 by the Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) and the Kenya Universities Staff Union (Kusu), is demanding a cumulative settlement of Sh11.53 billion in pay arrears stretching back to 2017.
At the heart of the dispute is Sh2.73 billion owed under the second phase of the 2021–25 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and Sh8.8 billion from the 2017–21 CBA.
The dons also want negotiations, registration, and implementation of a new 2025–29 CBA.
“My mind is very clear. I will not call off this strike until the Sh2.73 billion is paid, the Sh8.8 billion arrears cleared, and the 2025–29 CBA negotiated and implemented. Letters will not do. Wire the money,” Uasu secretary general Constantine Wasonga declared at Maseno University in Kisumu.
The boycott has thrown the academic calendar into uncertainty, disrupting lectures, examinations, and research in all 39 public universities and their campuses.
Lecturers’ grievances
The unions accuse the government — through the Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF), the Ministry of Education and the National Treasury — of acting in bad faith.
They say the state has ignored a January 2021 court order directing it and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to fund the full implementation of the 2017–21 CBA.
The dons have also rejected government offers of a two per cent pay rise and staggered allowances, pointing out that while other public servants enjoy medical schemes, car loans and mortgages, lecturers have been excluded for over a decade.
“Lecturers don’t even have medical cover, mortgages or car loans. For 10 years, nothing,” Wasonga said, adding that promotions which happen every three years in other sectors can take decades in universities.
At Moi University, staff who had only just resumed teaching after a three-week boycott have joined the strike.
They are also demanding Sh2.5 billion in staff arrears, alleging that funds earmarked for payment were diverted.
“This is not new money; it was promised and is long overdue. Some universities have settled, but Moi University has not paid a single shilling,” said Chapter Secretary Dr Busolo Wekesa.
Government’s response
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has appealed to the unions to return to work, citing a fresh order issued by the Labour Relations Court on September 17 that directed a conciliatory process.
He insisted the Sh2.73 billion demanded had already been wired to universities, urging staff to comply with the court order.
“We therefore call upon the university staff unions to call off the current strike in compliance with the order of court, to allow room for the legally-sanctioned conciliation process,” he said, while regretting the disruption to learning for hundreds of thousands of students.
Wasonga, however, dismissed the CS’s remarks, insisting no such funds had been received.
He said the only thing he received was a letter from SRC saying they were now going to meet to formulate salary review guidelines.
“They can meet while we are on the streets. But let us be clear — this strike will not end unless our three demands are met in toto,” he said.
Silence at the top
Amid the escalating standoff, President William Ruto met vice chancellors at State House Nairobi on Thursday.
The agenda was university funding and management, but he made no reference to the lecturers’ strike.
Instead, he praised universities for progress in training Kenya’s human capital, citing reforms in the student-centred funding model that had increased allocations from Sh44 billion in 2022 to Sh82 billion in 2025–26.
“Already, 10 of the 23 universities that had been declared insolvent in 2022 have since improved their financial standing. Additionally, in the last financial year, the institutions of higher learning were able to raise KSh1 billion from income-generating activities,” Ruto said.
The vicious cycle
The spectacle of strikes has become a recurring blemish in Kenya’s higher education.
Each wave of industrial action throws students’ studies into disarray, undermines research, and dents the credibility of public universities.
As unions dig in and government insists on its path, the question lingers: how long will Kenya’s universities remain hostage to the cycle of unpaid arrears, unhonoured CBAs, and strikes that seem to never end?
