Photo: via Wikimedia Commons.
Kenya's public university lecturers are set to return to work after their unions reached a 20 billion shilling deal with the government, ending a strike that halted learning in 35 public universities for nearly four weeks, according to People Daily, Nairobi Law Monthly and Radio Generation.
The Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) Secretary-General, Constantine Wasonga, announced the breakthrough on Wednesday, October 28, after talks with an inter-ministerial team drawn from the Ministries of Education, Public Service and the National Treasury, according to the reports.
"Today we have agreed on a figure we have negotiated with the government. Not a figure imposed on the unions," Wasonga said, according to People Daily and Nairobi Law Monthly. The package covers basic salaries and allowances under the 2025-2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which lecturers said had been delayed for nearly a year.
The deal followed weeks of rejected offers. The government had earlier proposed 9.76 billion shillings, then about 11.96 billion, both of which the unions turned down as too low, according to People Daily. The strike, called by UASU, the Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA), began on October 2, according to Nairobi Law Monthly.
What remains is paperwork. Technical teams will put the agreement in writing before it is formally signed on Friday, October 30, and the union plans to officially call off the strike at 3pm that day, according to People Daily and Radio Generation. Lecturers are expected to resume teaching on Monday, November 2, bringing the month-long disruption to an end.
What happens next matters for thousands of students whose semesters were thrown into disarray. Universities will need to rework academic calendars and clear backlogged course modules, while the government faces the test of delivering the agreed funds on schedule so the dispute does not reopen.