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{
    "id": 1229925,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1229925/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 158,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mandera South, UDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Abdul Haro",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. The Poet, Mark Twain, said this on standardisation: “I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.” As you have head from the contributions of Hon. Members, this Motion is quite confusing. The confusion is centered on whether the standardisation is about having similar uniform for all schools in the country, or the cost of uniform. If the idea is to have the burden on parents lessened in terms of cost, then we can propose to do two things as a country. We either abolish uniforms all together and parents will not have any cost on uniform or, just like other Members have suggested, we put the cost of uniform in the capitation so that parents do not pay for uniform in school. As we are now, every school has a uniform. If we want it to remain that way, it will be a good thing. The only thing that we need to deal with are the school principals and school heads who exploit parents by sending them to their own manufacturers or their schools supply uniforms, which makes the cost of uniforms very expensive for parents. In trying to standardise the uniforms, if we talk about, for example, making the uniform texture standard, we have a beautiful country with a lot of variables in almost all contexts. If you want to standardise uniform materials for a school in Limuru which is in a cold context and for a school in Mandera – where I come from – which is in a very hot context, you may end up disadvantaging one school. The material might not be useful in either a cold environment in Limuru, or a hot environment in Mandera. So, we do not need to be a country of standardisation. We have standardised our curriculum and exams. We now want to standardise our uniform so that every school puts on one uniform of a similar colour. When we talk about standardising production, are we talking about identifying one manufacturer who will be making uniforms for all the schools in the country? That is not the right way to go, and that is why I am not supporting this Motion. Standardisation will only make our educators to be enforcement officers. We have more other problems to deal with. Yesterday, we debated about the junior secondary school with all the challenges it is facing. Definitely, standardisation is not one of the priority challenges we have in education in this country. Thank you."
}