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"id": 1249150,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1249150/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Ezekiel Machogu",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 13458,
"legal_name": "Ezekiel Machogu Ombaki",
"slug": "ezekiel-machogu-ombaki"
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"content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. If I may start with the last question, I assure Members that we are aware JSS requires laboratories because we are emphasizing on STEM sciences, and that is why we are engaging the World Bank. In another four months, we hope that we would conclude our engagements with them and out of the funds that we would be getting from the World Bank, we should be able to do, at least, 40 per cent of the total requirement of laboratories countrywide and progressively, we will be able to mitigate on that infrastructural requirement. We are aware of the recruitment of teachers in ASAL areas, and if the Member can confirm, the numbers that were given to certain areas, particularly during the recruitment, I think were more. We will continue to increase the number until we alleviate the shortage of teachers. I request the Member of Parliament to share the number of those schools, including the ones in the ASAL areas. We have been to Turkana, Marsabit and Wajir, and we visited a number of JSS in those areas. I have not been to a school where I found one teacher teaching 14 subjects. You can come to the office we share, because there might be those isolated cases which will require that we give consideration. Hon. Member, engage us so that we can get a remedial measure on that. On the issue of classrooms in secondary schools, I want to make it very clear that, at this particular time, we had severe shortage of classrooms in our secondary schools. The number of classrooms that have been built are not enough. If you go to each of those secondary schools, you will find that they require more classrooms. It is not that they are not being used. Actually, a number of them are being used up to capacity, and even as we move forward, we look into a situation where we require to build more classrooms. There is no single school where we built classrooms that are not being used as of now. Hon. Speaker and Hon. Members, as we move forward, I have made an undertaking that we will recruit more teachers in the coming years if this august House allocates us the necessary funds to do so. We are aware that we do not have enough teachers in a number of our schools. We have now issued guidelines on the new administration blocks for JSS. It will be another expense. Hon. Members, you will agree with me that the Ministry does not have such funds. That is why we said that both primary schools and JSS will have the same kind of administration as of now. The only thing that we have changed a little bit is that they have separate school accounts. JSS operate a separate account from the primary school, but with one principal. As we move ahead, we might change and have a separate administration for JSS and the primary school. As of now, it is one principal, one administration block but separate accounts. We also have the board of management. Out of the 17, we have one set which is in charge of the accounts of the JSS, and another one in charge of the primary schools. I have made an undertaking on the issue of sanitary pads. We have had a discussion with the Members of Parliament - my Member of Parliament is one of them - and the Members of County Assemblies. Once the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Departmental Committee on Education decide, that is exactly what we will do. Thank you."
}