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{
    "id": 1050342,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1050342/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 234,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13188,
        "legal_name": "Getrude Musuruve Inimah",
        "slug": "getrude-musuruve-inimah"
    },
    "content": "leadership of Sen. (Dr.) Langat, you initiated this process and you were very aggressive on it. I remember very well we met severally and we did not tire. The entire Committee did a commendable job. When you left the Committee, Sen. (Dr.) Milgo took over the baton and she pursued the entire Committee to give intellectual and moral support to this Bill. We gave a lot of input as a Committee. I am happy that when it went to the National Assembly and there were issues, the Mediation Committee chaired by Sen. Omogeni came in to solve them. This is something very commendable. Madam Deputy Speaker, we must commend all of us for the efforts we put into this Bill because of the importance of early childhood education. As a nation, if we decide to invest in education and miss out the step in early childhood education, then we are not doing very well. This is because investment in education must start all the way from early childhood. If we invest a lot in primary education, universities and colleges and we skip early childhood education, then we are not doing very well because early childhood is the foundation to education. It is actually the cornerstone of education. We cannot claim to be doing very well if we have forgotten this. Madam Deputy Speaker, I remember in a committee under the leadership of Sen. (Dr.) Milgo, we invited a number of governors to our Committee to come and speak on issues of ECDE. It was very clear that there was no uniformity with regard to it. Some counties had feeding programmes. Others had put aside mechanisms of ensuring that children with disabilities were included in education. Others had no clear idea about ECDE and some were planning to start it. Madam Deputy Speaker, this mediation process is good because there will be a standard way of looking at things when it comes to ECDE. There will be a mandatory feeding programme in all schools. It was sad when we spoke to county executives who told us that some ECDE teachers were being paid the salary of a house girl, while others were getting salary ranging from Kshs10,000, Kshs14,000. It was a sorry state because most of them had not been paid for quite a number of years. It is very painful because the first encounter a child gets when he or she gets out of the parents’ house, is the school. The first encounter of school is ECDE. The environment needs to be a good transition from a parent’s home to the world of schooling. Therefore, the world of schooling ought to be friendly, giving an environment that will aid in holistic development of children. When we talk of holistic development of children, we are looking at cognitive development of children. From the house environment, children are taught by their parents, siblings and their significant others. When the child goes to ECDE centres, this should continue so that he develops cognitive. Apart from cognitive development, there is intellectual development, which starts from the house when children are taught by their parents then it is enhanced in the school. Physical development starts from home when parents walk their children to the shop and play with them in the compound. It is supposed to be enhanced when they go to ECDE centres. The environment should be enabling for them to develop holistically. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}