Dark Reality of Lecturers Being Exploited at Public Universities in Kenya

Public universities in Kenya have long been celebrated as bastions of knowledge and engines of social mobility, producing world-class scholars and propelling national development. But behind the veneer of academic excellence lies a dark reality – the widespread exploitation of the very lecturers who form the backbone of these institutions.

A recent exposé of labour malpractices at Tharaka University has thrust this issue into the national spotlight. Lecturers at the young institution, established as a fully-fledged university in 2022, allege that the administration routinely violates their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and tramples on their rights in the pursuit of rapid growth and transformation.

According to multiple sources, Tharaka requires teaching staff to handle a minimum of five course units per semester, including during the May to August semester, which is typically optional in other public universities. This workload grossly exceeds the maximum stipulated in the CBA, which caps regular semester load at four units for lecturers and three units for departmental heads.

“We are passionate about our work and dedicated to our students, but the university takes advantage of our commitment,” lamented one long-serving lecturer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “They keep piling on extra classes without compensation in blatant breach of our contract. Our pleas to the administration and our own union have gone unanswered.”

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Sadly, Tharaka University is not an outlier but rather a microcosm of a pervasive rot in Kenya’s public higher education sector. From the hallowed halls of the University of Nairobi to far-flung satellite campuses, tales abound of institutions squeezing lecturers dry while paying lip service to labour laws and regulations.

Common complaints include excessive and uncompensated workload, lack of funding for research and professional development, substandard medical insurance, and opaque promotion criteria designed to keep lecturers in junior positions indefinitely. Newly hired teaching staff often report being blindsided by exploitative policies that were not disclosed during recruitment.

“It’s an open secret that many public universities are balanced on the backs of overworked and underpaid lecturers,” said Dr. Wanjiku Mburu, an education policy expert. “Institutions maximize revenue by admitting more students than they can properly support, then pressure teaching staff to bear the burden by handling oversized classes for longer hours. It’s unsustainable and unethical.”

The government and universities’ regulatory bodies have at times paid attention to these issues, such as when the Commission for University Education capped lecturer workload at 40 hours per week. However, without strict enforcement and penalties, unscrupulous institutions continue to flout these directives with impunity.

Perhaps most concerning is the apparent capture of unions meant to advocate for lecturers’ welfare. At Tharaka and other universities, teaching staff accuse union officials of being compromised by management and failing to robustly defend their rights. This has created a culture of silence, with many suffering in quiet desperation.

As Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “All labour that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” Kenya’s public universities have produced luminaries who have transformed the nation and the world, thanks to the brilliance and dedication of lecturers working tirelessly to empower the next generation.

But by failing to honour and safeguard the rights of these remarkable scholars, the institutions dishonour their noble work and undermine their own missions. It is time for a national reckoning on labour relations in public higher education – time for universities to engage in honest negotiation with lecturers, to comply with employment laws in letter and spirit, and to invest in the professionals who make these citadels of learning what they are.

The government and regulators must also step up enforcement efforts, cracking down on chronic violators and creating meaningful avenues for aggrieved lecturers to seek redress without fear of repercussion. Only through such concerted efforts can our public universities live up to their vaunted ideals and truly be forces for good.

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