Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has dismissed reports that the government had given the green light for the ongoing lecturers' strike to proceed until January next year.
Ogamba, in a short statement shared on Tuesday evening, sought to dismiss claims of a viral letter that had been circulating on social media and various student quarters, suggesting that the ministry had okayed the current strike to proceed until January next year.
The letter had also suggested that the ministry had directed students to vacate their campuses till next year, alleging that the ongoing talks had failed to reach an inclusive agreement.
''The letter currently circulating and purporting to be from me is fake. I urge the public to treat it with the contempt it deserves,'' Ogamba shared.
The ongoing industrial action by university dons and staff has paralysed learning in all public universities across the country, putting the future of thousands of learners at a crossroads.
The strike, which began in mid-September, has particularly affected the first-year students who had just joined the campus with the hope of kick-starting their higher educational milestone pursuits.
On Monday, a section of university students threatened to join the dons on the streets to push the government to hasten the deliberations or a return to normalcy.
Meanwhile, the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) have insisted that the current strike will continue despite the CS Ogamba and court directives that mandated them to return to the lecture halls.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court, through Justice Jacob Gakeri, on September 18 suspended the strike after the Inter-Public Universities’ Councils Forum sought redress and directed both parties to resume negotiations in good faith.
However, the dons argued that the government had consistently failed to honour long-standing agreements, making it unreasonable to expect lecturers to call off the strike.
They also further noted that lecturers had made three demands, but the government only met one, the disbursement of Ksh2.5 billion.
Additionally, they dismissed this as inadequate, arguing that the government still owed Ksh7.9 billion from the 2017 and 2021 CBAs, and only released part of the money owed under the 2021–2025 CBA.
