Education CS Julius Ogamba says his ministry is negotiating with the National Treasury and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to get additional funding for university lecturers after they rejected Sh9.7 billion pay offer.
Ogamba said government teams were engaging the Treasury to obtain commitments for an improved financial proposal before inviting university lecturers’ unions back to the negotiating table.
“We are working with SRC and the National Treasury to improve the rejected figure, the Sh9.7 billion. Then we can call the union back to the table to give them the second offer,” he said.
Speaking to journalists, the CS said the government hopes to resume negotiations within days, once the Treasury commits the resources required to support the revised proposal.
“Our teams are at the National Treasury trying to get commitments for the second figure we want to offer. Then we meet in a few days once the commitment is made. Then we can negotiate on the improved figure,” Ogamba said.
The negotiations come amid a nationwide university lecturers’ strike that began at midnight on October 2, 2026, after talks over the 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) stalled.
The Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) has maintained that the proposed Sh9.76 billion allocation is inadequate to meet the demands contained in the four-year agreement.
UASU Secretary General Dr Constantine Wasonga said the strike followed prolonged delays by university councils, the Ministry of Education and the National Treasury in implementing agreements reached with academic staff.
“When we negotiated the 2021–2025 CBA, for two years we consumed Sh9.7 billion, so we cannot imagine a CBA for four years can also consume Sh9.7 billion,” Wasonga said.
He argued that the latest agreement contains additional issues that were not covered in previous negotiations, requiring more resources to implement.
Ogamba said the government had made progress in addressing previous disputes, including settling arrears relating to the 2017–2021 and 2021–2025 CBAs.
“When we came in, we had a problem of strikes in universities,” he said, adding that the outstanding challenge was concluding negotiations for the 2025–2029 agreement.
The CS attributed the delay partly to the need to coordinate with several government agencies, noting that the National Treasury had to commit the necessary resources before a new offer could be presented.
He said the government had also subjected the unions’ proposals to scrutiny by economists to establish whether the demands were financially viable.
“We have taken their proposal and subjected it to economists to look at affordability, comparability and sustainability,” Ogamba said.
“We have to give an offer we can afford, comparable, and determine that we are able to sustain the figure.”
