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{
    "id": 1229897,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1229897/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 130,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Emurua Dikirr, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Johana Kipyegon",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for allowing me this opportunity to weigh in on this particular Motion. We must understand that education has to be accessible and cheap. It has to be something that each and every child in the society achieves or accesses. There is a saying that education is an equalizer. Wherever you come from, whether from the poorest community, poorest family, remotest area and wherever, once you access education, it makes you equal to those other people. When we talk about accessing free primary education, it has to be completely free, accessible, reachable and of quality. Among the many issues that we have in our schools that cause our pupils or students drop out of school; and I have taken time to do my assessment, are the payments which schools may be demanding from parents. That is one of the biggest causes of school dropouts. As Members of this House, legislators and representatives of people, we must take time to ensure we make education affordable, reachable and reduce the number of school dropouts. There are situations which cause students to drop out of schools which are unavoidable in terms of cost. We should take time as a House to ensure that we make it affordable and accessible to everybody. The introduction of 100 per cent transition has gone a long way but the major impediment is the payments which we are asking these people to make. Another issue is the introduction of junior secondary schools. It is another opportunity because we are reducing the number of years in secondary schools and bringing them to primary. This was meant to ensure parents will not incur the high cost of students travelling to and from distant schools or even in buying uniforms. All these are geared towards reducing the cost of education. The idea of uniforms which Mhe. Wamuchomba has brought as a Motion is vital. We not only need to look at how we should standardise uniforms… I have also heard Members speak about the fact that uniforms make one look different from the rest and so on and so forth. We need to make our students feel that they are all equal so that some do not feel they are more inferior or superior than the rest. The reason we introduced one bus colour was so that we make all schools uniform. We also need to standardise school uniforms with the only different thing being the badge. Let every school come up with a badge, just like all school buses on the road are yellow but with different names of schools. What is wrong with that? No school is feeling inferior even if their bus is long and the other one is short. Everybody knows that this is a school bus. Let us standardise the uniforms and make them the same colour. If it is shorts; if it is long trousers, just make them standard and let us move away from schools where students in Form One put on shorts. That is primitive. Let us make our children feel beautiful and handsome with good trousers and good shirts. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I support fully. Let us have the same uniform. Sweaters should be one colour; shirts should be one colour and trousers should be one colour. What is wrong with uniformity? Somebody is saying that we need to have so many colours so that people can look beautiful. They will still look beautiful. We are in ties and ties are part of uniform. We should be in suits, although they are not of the same colour. But look at the orderlies in the House. We are all in one uniform. So, why are we having our orderlies in the same attire? I support this Motion that says we need to have standardised set of uniforms. Hon. Temporary Speaker, uniforms help us to identify students. I remember when I was a student, I would wear my uniform until I get home. One of the reasons was to show people that I am in school. Secondly, we also had to show the badge that was on our uniforms. I was The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}