Kenyan lecturers petition Treasury; UoN students set 72-hour deadline as strike goes on

Lecturers at Kenya's public universities demonstrated at the University of Nairobi and along Kenyatta Avenue on Thursday 15 October 2026, then handed a petition to Treasury officials. The Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU), which led the march, wants the 2025–2029 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) implemented. The strike entered its second week.

A day later, the University of Nairobi Students' Association (UNSA) gave the government 72 hours to end the strike, saying students would protest on the streets if the dispute was not resolved. UNSA president Ahmed Rashid, speaking in a mix of Swahili and English, said: "Tunasema Wednesday kama strike haijaisha we will go to the streets" ("We are saying: Wednesday, if the strike has not ended, we will go to the streets"). Students also asked the government to keep its word to lecturers, pay what they are owed and explain the university funding model.

UASU began the strike on 2 October, after a seven-day notice expired. The union wants the 2025–2029 CBA negotiated, signed, registered and fully implemented, with a written financial commitment from the government and the National Treasury. It also wants KSh 7.9 billion in salary arrears under earlier CBAs, including 2017–2021, paid in full. It accuses the Salaries and Remuneration Commission of giving misleading advice.

Talks with the government's Inter-Ministerial Committee on Monday 12 October collapsed. The National Treasury was invited but did not attend; UASU criticised its absence and said the offer was largely the same as the one tabled on 1 October. UASU Secretary General Constantine Wasonga said: "The talks have collapsed. The strike therefore continues."

The government's counter-offer was KSh 12 billion for partial payment, and the unions rejected it. "The counter-offer from the government is awfully inadequate, and we have rejected it in toto," Wasonga said. The news site Eastleigh Voice reported that the unions also turned down a KSh 9.76 billion allocation for the four-year agreement. An earlier proposal from the Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF), the employers' side, of a 4 per cent annual salary increase was rejected too.

The employer options included 2 per cent across the board (8.25 per cent cumulative) and 3 per cent across all grades (12.56 per cent cumulative). The unions are seeking basic-salary rises of 36 per cent to 68 per cent depending on grade, and a 57 per cent increase in house allowance.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba gave a different account of the arrears on 5 October, at World Teachers' Day celebrations at Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi. "As we speak today, all arrears under the 2017–2021 and 2021–2025 CBAs have been cleared," he said, urging lecturers to obey court orders and return to work. The unions say clearing past arrears does not answer their demands under the new CBA.

Beatrice Inyangala, Principal Secretary for Higher Education and Research, said on 8 October that the government believed the remaining issues could be resolved through engagement, but gave no date for students to return to class.

The last strike lasted 49 days and ended on 5 November 2025. That return-to-work agreement included settling KSh 7.9 billion in 2017–2021 arrears and concluding the 2025–2029 CBA within 30 days; the deadline was missed.

Wasonga put the number of university students at about 700,000 and the number of lecturers at about 10,000, of whom about 9,000 teach.

UNSA chief of staff Michael Soi said students who should be sitting exams, such as pharmacy students, are not. A Machakos University student said the strike has sent some students home and left parents paying rent while their children cannot attend class.

"We will continue with this strike until next year if that is what it takes, until the money is in our pockets," Wasonga said.