UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

STATEMENT ON THE STRIKE OF THE STAFF MEMBERS OF KENYA’S PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AND THE CLOSURE OF THE UNIVERSITIES

As we commemorate the Africa University Day today, six public universities have been closed indefinitely in

Kenya

since 10^th November, 2003!

Members of the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) of the public universities in

Kenya

launched a request to the Government of Kenya for the revision of their salaries seven months ago. Last month, they gave the Government of Kenya a 21 day notice to the effect that they would go on strike if the Government did not affect their requests immediately. Professors requested that their monthly pay be raised from about Kshs 40,000/= to Kshs 895,000/ while lecturers wanted Kshs 232,000/=, up from the current Kshs 12,000/=. Assistant lecturers, on the other hand, wanted Kshs 20,000/=. A newly employed assistant lecturer in the public universities in

Kenya

gets a basic salary of Kshs 9,000/= (about Tshs 90,000/=) while senior lecturers earn Kshs 23,000/= (about Tshs 230,000/=) as basic pay. Associate professors earn Kshs 30,000/= (Tshs 300,000) and a professor is paid the same, excluding allowances.

Members of staff also called for the creation of a university service commission to harmonise salaries and allowances for academic staff in all public and private universities. For a long time, lecturers of the public universities in

Kenya

have stagnated at a salary of Kshs 24,000/=, an amount which cannot sustain their livelihoods for even a week. Due to this situation, it has been very difficult since 1989 for most university departments to attract new members of staff. Attrition of the staff members has been on the increase, and most of those who have remained have been forced to moonlight and engage in other activities that leave very little room for serious academic work.

This is a very unfortunate situation. The consequence, as in many other universities in Africa, has been the tendency for academic standards to fall. Education, and especially higher education for any nation is an investment in the future. The destruction of the higher learning institutions in the past 30 years has led to most of our governments embracing donor driven so-called “Capacity Building Programmes”, “Technical Assistance” (simply, in some cases employment of less qualified unemployed from donor countries) and hiring expensive expatriates, rather than move to strengthen their own institutions so as to become self-reliant in knowledge and skills. Africa cannot survive in the 21^st Century by wasting its resources through refusal to invest in them on the pretext that it is too expensive. “Kama elimu ni ghali, basi jaribu ujinga” (If education is too expensive, then try ignorance), so, a Swahili adage goes.

Rather than respond to the problems, the Kenyan Government has always been eager to create Task Forces, which consume a lot of money, to investigate on the salaries of the lecturers. The Minister for Education, Prof. George Saitoti has asked the university lecturers to await the report of another task force (Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research Analysis), which is expected in February. The assumption is the academics are unreasonable in their demands. This is strange, since the same government raised the monthly salaries of MPs (some of whom were colleagues of these academics or were educated by them) to Kshs 500,000/=

Kenyan lecturers in the six public universities (3,200 strong) went on strike on 10^th November, 2003, with the full support of their students. The Government responded by closing the universities and sending the more than 60,000 students home. This whole crisis has resulted from the negligence of the government in addressing the requests and the strike threat. Instead the government is talking about the illegality of the strike, claiming that members of staff did not exhaust all the channels, and ignoring the fact that the lecturers have been paid illegal salaries for so long, which constitutes illegal action on the part of the government! In that context it is draconian for the government to take resort to legalistic threats. This is a case of atrophied “rule of law”!

It is hoped that the government of

Kenya

will reconsider its stand and address the issues at hand through negotiations so that the universities can continue functioning normally as soon as possible. Africa cannot afford such losses during this moment of history. The public universities of

Kenya

, like all other universities in Africa, deserve the full support of all the people in Africa. They have a vital function to discharge for our societies that must be defended by any means necessary.

We in the University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly stand firmly behind our colleagues in their struggle for improved working conditions.

[signed by C.S.L. Chachage]

Prof. Chachage Seithy L. Chachage

Chairperson

University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly

Published by Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com