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{
    "id": 685673,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/685673/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 306,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms) S.W. Chege",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 884,
        "legal_name": "Sabina Wanjiru Chege",
        "slug": "sabina-wanjiru-chege"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I thank the Leader of the Majority Party for moving the Bill. This is a Bill that has taken us time, as a Committee, to speak to the stakeholders because it is a very important Bill. The Bill focuses on the quality of education in our higher institutions of learning. There has been a lot of conflict and confusion especially between the professional bodies and the Commission. We need to streamline operations whereby, once the accreditation of universities is done by the Commission, there is a proper way when the professional body should come in. We have had cases where professional bodies say: “Such an institution is not suitable to host students.” Actually, they even give a demand letter to close such an institution where the Commission has already given a go-ahead. So, it is a very important Bill so that we have clear roles. We need to know what the role of the Commission is to university education. At the same time, what is the role of the professional bodies that are also key in looking at what our students are being trained on? It is also important for me to mention that our universities now need to wake up. They need to look at what is happening in the world and work with the private sector. That is so that they produce graduates who are ready for the market. I feel sad every time I see each and every university graduating 10,000 students. You will see they are ready to go to the job market. If they are not well prepared to join that job market, it is bad. We also have the private sector trying to look for some specific professionals, but they cannot get them from our universities. So, it is high time our universities started working closely with the private sector to make sure they produce what is ready for the market. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is something else that came up about funding of the universities. I want to mention to this House that the Government of Kenya (GoK), especially the Jubilee Government, has noted with a lot of concern the number of students who qualify to join university after Form Four. They do not get a chance to join university because we are only taking 74,000 students. The number of students who got C+ (plus) and above is 168, 000. I want to really thank the President of the Republic of Kenya, His Excellency President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and his Government for considering an addition of 10,000 students whom the Government will take care of. It will pay their school fees in private universities. What the President did is, for one, to encourage private universities to expand and have good structures. It is not just going to be any private university. There must be some standards for a university to qualify for the Government to sponsor students to those universities. On the funding initiatives that the Government has done, it is really commendable that we have 10,000 more students joining our universities. We have also heard the issue about appointments of the vice-chancellors of the universities. It is now clear in this Bill on the qualifications and how it is going to be done. This will help so that we do not have people feeling they were not considered when they qualified for positions. It is important to note that the recent Report that was raised by Hon. Kaparo on ethnicity in our universities is worrying. I hope our universities, when hiring, will consider that anybody who is qualified from---"
}