Lecturers turn to dances and public gimmicks as strike enters fourth week

From Maseno University to Kenyatta University, and across several other leading campuses, lecturers have been staging impromptu performances filled with color and pomp, as laughter, fun, and camaraderie take centre stage, even as their demands remain unresolved.

In Maseno, both male and female lecturers donned 'deras' and broke into zesty dances as they gyrated and spiralled around the campus grounds, looking every bit unbothered by a strike that has dragged on for weeks now.

At the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), the situation was the same as giddy lecturers gathered to engage in outdoors activities which included dances, sack races and other team-building style games, as they sprawled across the campus lawn, others even squeezing in some 'dancing chairs' sessions as the fun hit fever pitch.

At the University of Nairobi (UoN), they played football, and at the Kenyatta University (KU), lecturers spiritedly drove across the campus grounds in motorbikes and private cars as they hooted loudly, blared car speakers and hollered via portable megaphones.

Others skipped ropes and participated in choreographed dances to popular Arbantone songs.

Unperturbed by the learning crisis, which has seen them miss classes for weeks and walk into headwinds with the government, the lecturers appear every bit ready to stand their ground - and jig along while at it.

Fun aside, some lecturers have also been publicly castigated and blasted by their colleagues for evading 'strike duties' and conducting secret online classes.

Viral videos shared by an Instagram page going by the handle @uon_ig show lecturers confronting each other in online class platforms, as colleagues berate their peers for failing to show solidarity and running clandestine teaching sessions.

"What are you teaching them? There is a strike in place. Stop forcing these children to learn. This is immoral, it's extremely wrong, you're teaching them the wrong law. Students will be taught the correct law. Not by cowards. You're teaching them the wrong morals!" one lecturer snapped at his colleague as students flooded the page with laugh emojis.

On Wednesday, October 8, hundreds of striking lecturers held a peaceful demonstration in Nairobi to urge the government to meet their demands as their strike entered its fourth week.

The dons gathered at the Chancellor’s Square at the University of Nairobi before marching to Parliament Buildings, Treasury, and finally the Ministry of Education offices at Jogoo House.

The lecturers, chanting and singing, called for the release of funds owed to them under the 2017–2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The demonstration was organised by officials of the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya University Staff Union (KUSU), who reiterated their demand for full implementation of the court-ordered payment and the commencement of negotiations for the 2025–2029 CBA.