When lectures stop, student lives stand still

Kenya’s university strike is not just an industrial dispute — it is a crisis landing hardest on the young people least able to absorb it

By Hadassah Karangu

A university is more than a collection of lecture halls and libraries. It is the place where young people build futures, discover abilities and prepare to take their place in the country’s economic and social life. For many students, it represents years of sacrifice — their own and that of parents who have stretched modest incomes, exhausted savings and taken on debt in the hope of something better. When that institution suddenly grinds to a halt, the cost is not measured in missed lectures alone. It is measured in disrupted lives, strained households and a quiet, accumulating anxiety that no academic calendar can easily repair.

Kenya’s ongoing university lecturers’ strike has emptied classrooms and thrown academic schedules into uncertainty. For students, the familiar rhythm of lectures, assignments and examination preparation has been replaced by long, unstructured days. Hostels that should sit between classes now function as waiting rooms, and the only announcements students can depend on are those confirming that nothing has yet been resolved.

Some students will use the break productively — picking up new skills, pursuing internships, reading ahead or developing small enterprises. Many others will struggle without structure, not out of laziness but because they are young people caught in a situation they did not create and cannot resolve. The distinction matters. The temptation to dismiss idle students as undisciplined ignores the reality that discipline is far easier to maintain when tomorrow has a clear shape. When it does not, the postponements accumulate.

The risks of prolonged inactivity are real and should be acknowledged honestly. University life already exposes young adults to new social environments and the full weight of independent decision-making. When lectures disappear and days lose their structure, some students — particularly those already managing stress, loneliness or financial pressure — may find themselves in environments where alcohol and other substances offer the easiest escape. This is not a condemnation of students as a generation. It is a recognition that vulnerability increases when support systems thin out and constructive alternatives are absent.

Relationships and major personal decisions are also affected in ways that rarely feature in industrial dispute coverage. Extended time in hostels, away from academic routine, can create conditions in which important choices are made impulsively — decisions about cohabitation, early marriage or parenthood that deserve far more considered circumstances. Young people are still shaping their identities. A disrupted routine is a poor moment to be making commitments with lifelong consequences.

Behind every student sitting idle is a financial story that deserves attention. Rent does not pause because lectures have. Food must still be bought. Families on modest incomes continue to send money they can barely spare, sometimes without fully understanding why their student remains on campus without attending class. Students whose graduation timelines have shifted face disrupted employment plans, delayed entry into the labour market and the quiet frustration of watching carefully laid plans unravel through no fault of their own.

None of this diminishes the legitimate concerns of lecturers. Staff welfare, fair remuneration and sustainable working conditions are not peripheral matters — they are central to the functioning of any credible academic institution. But students must not become the forgotten casualties of a dispute they have no power to resolve. Every additional week of inactivity has consequences for learning continuity, mental health, family finances and young people’s faith in the education system.

The government, university managements and lecturers’ unions must negotiate with genuine urgency. Clear communication, honest timelines and concrete recovery plans would go some way toward reducing the sense of abandonment that students currently feel. Universities should also consider what practical support is possible in the interim — access to learning materials, independent study guidance, counselling services, information about legitimate skills development opportunities. These cannot replace teaching, but they signal that the institution still considers its students worth attending to even when the doors are technically closed.

Students, for their part, are not powerless. Maintaining a daily routine — even a modest one built around reading, revision or a practical skill — preserves academic discipline and provides structure when the institution has withdrawn it. Rest and social connection are legitimate and necessary, but every day need not be surrendered to waiting. Volunteering, short courses, community engagement and creative work are all within reach for students who choose to look for them. And when the uncertainty becomes genuinely overwhelming, seeking support from family, counsellors or trusted mentors is not weakness. It is good judgment.

A lecturers’ strike is typically framed as a dispute between employers, employees and the government. That framing is accurate but incomplete. At its edges sit tens of thousands of young Kenyans whose futures are being quietly disrupted while negotiations proceed at a pace that seems indifferent to the clock they are running against.

When lecture halls fall silent, the consequences do not stay on campus. They travel home with students, settle into family kitchens and sit alongside parents doing arithmetic they did not expect to be doing at this stage of their children’s education.

The question is not simply how long students will remain out of class. It is how much uncertainty a generation must absorb before the institutions entrusted with their futures decide that enough is enough. Because when lectures stop, the clock does not. And young people continue to grow older while waiting for an education they have already paid dearly to receive.

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