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{
    "id": 1229950,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1229950/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 183,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bahati, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Irene Njoki",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. Let me start by first appreciating my colleague, Hon. Wamuchomba, for coming up with this Motion which is so timely to us today. As a mother and a Member of Parliament, I understand the reason you came up with this Motion. I know standardising uniforms will save cost to our parents. Yesterday, I was at home in my constituency and I could see the agony that our parents are going through. Grade Six students have not fully transitioned because of lack of uniforms. The issue of uniform is like a trading tool and our students have not joined school because of lack of uniforms and desks. In my view, when we standardise these uniforms, we will for sure save cost to our parents. I support this Motion that standardising uniforms will surely lead to a smooth transition to schools. If I may go back to junior secondary schools, I have always wondered why we have to request parents to buy uniforms for students transitioning to Grade Seven yet they had uniforms. Our parents are struggling. Why can we not have the same uniform that these students used to wear so that they can continue with their studies? Standardising these uniforms will take care of this gap so that our parents do not have to go back to their pockets to buy more uniforms. We know that uniforms give our students a sign of equality, pride as well as distinguish them. We want to say that standardising these uniforms will remove the barrier of making one school appear more superior than the others. We have seen during drama competitions and prize giving days that some schools and students feel more superior than others. Standardising these uniforms will ensure that we remove that barrier. Hon. Temporary Speaker, through the Ministry of Education or Hon. Wamuchomba as she is the one coming up with this Motion, I want to implore our Government to support our parents. If we have free education, we can also give our children free uniforms. This will go a long way in helping our parents. As a Member of Parliament, when you try to support some students with a bursary of Ksh4,000, the bill still comes to Ksh13,000 because of the cost of uniform. So, which one is better? I wish the Government could issue the uniforms instead of the parent buying them for Ksh13,000. We are all here as people’s representatives. I support and request the Government to assist our parents to, at least, get school uniforms for free. I want to also point to Hon. Wamuchomba that we need to deal with the issue of indiscipline especially when students go for galas or national functions. We need to know how we are going to identify them so as to deal with indiscipline cases. Some of my colleagues have suggested logos, but we can do different ties so that we are able to identify them so as to curb indiscipline. We also need to be careful because students can attend functions and due to peer pressure, do funny things and we might not be able to identify the school that did that. We should promote SMEs. I want to request and suggest that we standardise these uniforms locally. Hon. John Kiarie has indicated that we can set up industries locally, but I want to say that we need to promote our SMEs. We know we have the hustler fund and it will be good for us to promote our tailors. As you can see, today I am very smart and I do not need to be told that. I can see that I am very smart and it is because I have promoted my local SME. We can even do the same through the hustler fund thus promoting our businesses. We do not want to kill the giants, but we want to promote our own local people and we can do this by providing them with finances to make uniforms."
}