National Assembly urges government to end Kenya's university lecturers' strike

Kenya's National Assembly has urged the Executive to end the strike by public-university staff that began on 2 October 2026, Citizen Digital reported on 22 October. Speaker Moses Wetang'ula led lawmakers in asking the Ministry of Finance to revisit the 2025–2029 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the pay and working-conditions contract at the centre of the dispute. He said: "That the National Assembly petitions the Ministry of Finance to revisit the CBA and end the strike."

The Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) stopped work after talks with the employers' side, the Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF), collapsed.

Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah said students "are wasting away at home". Higher Education Principal Secretary Dr Beatrice Inyangala told lawmakers: "We are engaging stakeholders with an aim of ending the stalemate."

The unions object to what they call unilateral decisions on salaries, terms of service and working conditions, and say these should be settled through a CBA, not government circulars. They rejected a proposed KSh 9.76 billion settlement, saying it had not been negotiated with them. UASU Secretary General Dr Constantine Wasonga warned that the strike could continue for an extended period if the government did not change its position.

The Standard reported on 12 October that the KSh 9.76 billion covered the four-year agreement, that talks had collapsed for the second time within a week, and that UASU, KUSU and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) all rejected the proposal. Wasonga said: "The counter-offer was woefully inadequate." He said it largely repeated the offer made on 1 October, and that the 2021–2025 CBA consumed KSh 9.7 billion over two years. KUSU Secretary General Dr Charles Mukhwaya said a salary adjustment of about 3 per cent would not protect workers against inflation and rising living costs. Labour Principal Secretary Shadrack Mwadime said: "The dispute centres on the negotiation, conclusion, registration and implementation of the CBA."

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba spoke for the government at World Teachers' Day celebrations on 5 October. He said arrears under the 2017–2021 and 2021–2025 CBAs had been cleared, and asked UASU and individual lecturers to obey court orders and return to work. He said the government would negotiate future CBAs, including the 2025–2029 one, on time and conclude them.

Wasonga said, as reported by the Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke on 5 October, that the strike was over the failure to implement the 2025–2029 CBA and to honour a return-to-work formula signed on 5 November 2025. The formula committed the parties to conclude talks within 30 days, and the deadline passed without a settlement. The Standard reported on 23 October that the government had committed to resolve a new pay deal within a month of the end of the 49-day strike in 2025.

In an editorial on 13 October, the Daily Nation said the academic programmes of more than 700,000 public-university students had been disrupted. It said the lecturers want the CBA implemented, covering basic salaries, allowances, car loans and mortgages, as well as KSh 7.9 billion in past commitments.

The unions marched in Nairobi on 15 October and handed a petition to National Treasury officials outside the Treasury, the Kenyan education news site Education News reported on 17 October. Their demands included a financial commitment to implement the 2025–2029 CBA, funding through the National Exchequer rather than student fees, an updated national staffing audit and a structured recruitment programme. Mukhwaya called for an implementable settlement and not another promise whose financing remains uncertain.