The lecturers’ strike is over — but if history is any guide, it is merely paused.
By Samuel Milimoh
Let us be clear: students never refused to return to class. They wanted to learn, complete assignments, sit examinations and progress. What they did not want — and still do not want — is to spend their university years hostage to a cycle of industrial disputes that nobody in authority appears serious about permanently breaking.
The KSh20B agreement between the government and the Universities Academic Staff Union is significant. The settlement, spread across three financial years — KSh6.7B in 2026/2027, KSh6.7B in 2027/2028 and KSh6.6B in 2028/2029 — is intended to implement the 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Students welcome it. But they are entitled to ask the harder question: is this a solution or simply a postponement?
Lecturers deserve fair pay, better conditions and respect. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether UASU Secretary-General Constantine Wasonga and his leadership have secured an agreement with enforceable timelines, clear accountability and genuine safeguards against the same grievances resurfacing in two years. Students have heard the promises before.
Every strike disrupts more than lectures. It derails graduation timelines, strains finances, fractures confidence and quietly erodes the credibility of public university education. Students pay that price while negotiators shake hands for the cameras.
The government must honour this commitment in full and on time. The unions must remember that the students they inconvenience are the very people their members exist to teach. And university administrators must recover lost academic time without punishing the students who were never the problem.
The end of a strike should mean the beginning of stability — not the start of a new countdown.
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