Lecturers in Kenya’s public universities could go on a nationwide strike from October 2, 2026, after the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) issued the government with a seven day strike notice.
The union issued the notice on September 24, giving the government until the end of the seven day period to address outstanding issues surrounding lecturers’ pay, university funding and the delayed 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
When will the lecturers’ strike begin?
UASU has said the strike will begin at midnight on Friday, October 2, 2026, if the issues raised by the union are not resolved.
The notice affects lecturers in public universities across Kenya, with the union saying it has reached this point after what it describes as prolonged delays in concluding and implementing a new CBA.
Why are lecturers threatening to strike?
At the centre of the dispute is the 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement.
UASU wants the agreement to be negotiated, signed, registered and implemented. However, negotiations have stalled over the financial commitments required to implement the deal.
The union says the Ministry of Education and the National Treasury have not provided a written commitment that funding for the CBA will come through the National Exchequer.
According to UASU, the absence of that commitment has also prevented the Salaries and Remuneration Commission from providing the financial advice needed to move the negotiations forward.
UASU wants lecturers’ salaries funded by the government
Another major point of disagreement is how public university staff salaries and benefits should be financed. UASU maintains that lecturers are public officers and that their remuneration should be funded through the National Exchequer.
The union has rejected the possibility of universities relying on student fees or market-based funding to meet staff remuneration obligations.
The dispute comes as Kenya continues to debate changes to the financing of higher education, including proposals contained in the Tertiary Education, Placement and Funding Bill, 2026, which has not yet become law.
What else are lecturers demanding?
The CBA is not the only issue raised by UASU.
The union has also pointed to:
- Inadequate staffing in public universities
- Heavy workloads for existing lecturers
- Underfunding of universities
- Outstanding obligations under previous agreements
- Concerns about the employment and remuneration status of academic staff
- Greater involvement of academic staff in developing human resource policies for public universities.
UASU has also claimed that the government owes public universities about Sh100 billion, although this is a claim made by the union rather than an independently established figure.
This is not the first lecturers’ strike over CBAs
The latest dispute follows a difficult period for university staff. In 2025, lecturers went on a prolonged strike over outstanding payments under previous CBAs. A return-to-work agreement was eventually reached, including a government commitment to pay Sh7.9 billion in arrears under the 2017–2021 CBA in two phases.
The agreement also provided for negotiations towards the 2025–2029 CBA.
UASU now says those negotiations have not progressed sufficiently and has therefore issued the latest strike notice.
So, why are there so many strikes in Kenya this year?
The lecturers’ dispute comes shortly after another major labour dispute involving public sector workers.
Kenya’s nurses ended a 43-day nationwide strike on September 9, 2026, after the Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives and the Council of Governors signed a return-to-work agreement.
That agreement followed a dispute over the implementation of an older CBA, allowances, employment terms and other outstanding issues. Nurses secured an increase in the risk allowance to Sh8,000 and the uniform allowance to Sh15,000, alongside commitments on employment terms and a new career framework.
The two disputes are not the same, and they involve different employers and unions. However, there is a noticeable similarity: long-running collective bargaining agreements, questions about funding and delayed implementation of negotiated terms are at the centre of both disputes.
Kenya has also seen industrial action or strike threats in other sectors this year, including aviation, where workers raised concerns including delayed salary reviews and unresolved collective bargaining agreements.
This raises a bigger question of why so many labour disputes are ending up as strikes in 2026.
One factor visible across several of these disputes is the gap between agreements reached by workers and employers and their actual implementation. Another is the pressure on public finances, particularly where wage bills, allowances and other employment obligations have to be funded by national or county governments.
But each dispute has its own circumstances, and it would be misleading to treat all of Kenya’s strikes as one single labour conflict.
For workers, however, the underlying issue is often the same: when negotiations fail to produce an agreement, or an agreement is reached but implementation is delayed, industrial action becomes one of the mechanisms unions use to pressure employers back to the negotiating table.
What does the lecturers’ strike mean for students?
If the strike goes ahead, learning in Kenya’s public universities could be disrupted.
Lecturers may withdraw teaching services, potentially affecting:
- Lectures and tutorials
- Continuous assessments
- Examinations
- Academic calendars
- Graduation and completion timelines
- Registration and other academic activities that depend on teaching staff
The exact impact will depend on whether the government and UASU reach an agreement before October 2 and what arrangements individual universities make.
For now, the lecturers have issued a strike notice, but the strike has not yet begun. Students should therefore follow official communication from their universities rather than assuming that classes or examinations have already been cancelled.
What happens next?
The government and UASU have seven days to try to resolve the dispute.
The key issues to watch are whether the parties agree on the financing of the 2025–2029 CBA, whether a financial proposal is tabled, and whether the outstanding issues around university funding and staff remuneration can be resolved.
If no agreement is reached, UASU says lecturers in public universities will begin their nationwide strike at midnight on October 2, 2026.
