First Edition, March 2025
Commonwealth Teachers Group (CTG)
KUPPET ’ S EXPERIENCES FROM THE 2024 TEACHERS ’ STRIKE By Hon. Omboko Milemba For five days in August/September 2024, Kenyan teachers shut down schools to protest deep cuts to the education
budget. Despite massive scare tactics which included contempt of court proceedings against union officials, the strike
forced the government to the negotiating table. And it was only called off after the government gave a written
commitment to immediately address five of the six demands underlying our industrial action.
A month earlier, during the Education International’s 10th World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I had briefed
the congress on our imminent strike to fight back the grotesque cuts inspired by the IMF and the World Bank. After an
interlude of nearly two decades when their policies were booted, the two Bretton Woods institutions are back with a
bang in Kenya. The country was once again adopting the tenets of corporate education reforms that wreaked
immense damage to Kenya in the 1990s.
Under the reforms styled as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), the government did away with free education,
introducing the so-called cost-sharing. The employment of teachers was frozen, and the development of new schools
all but halted. The government stopped providing learning resources including books, uniforms and meals. The
government even toyed with retrenching teachers, but met strong resistance.
A decade later, a new government overruled the SAPs and scaled up public financing for education. Kenya
implemented free primary education and rolled out special funds to support secondary schools, vocational
institutions and universities. More teachers were employed, although shortages continue to fester.
Concrete efforts were made to improve working conditions through collective bargaining, salary reviews,
health insurance and professional development, among others.
A month earlier, during the Education International’s 10th World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I had
briefed the congress on our imminent strike to fight back the grotesque cuts inspired by the IMF and the
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