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    "id": 140531,
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    "content": "their terms of service are generally poor, as compared with those of professionals in other sectors. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to appreciate the fact that the Minister has declared that no more middle-level colleges will be converted into universities. This trend, which has existed during the last three years, has suddenly swallowed our middle- level colleges. I am happy to note that in this year’s Budget, there is provision for construction of new eight technical institutions in the country. As my colleague said, we hope that the distribution of these colleges will be done equitably in the entire country. I have concern about award of scholarships and bursaries to university students by the Ministry, and not the HELB. We are aware that there are funds within the Ministry, which are given to students to pursue higher education either in private colleges or even in colleges out of the country. I think there is a lot of mystery. There is no clear-cut procedure on how to access these funds. I hope the Ministry will announce through the media, every year, bursaries available for students in local universities as well as in foreign universities, so that students in the entire country can apply and compete for them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another area that I would like the Minister to look into more critically is on the parallel degree programmes in all our universities. I am one of those people who are very much opposed to classifying students as “parallel” and “regular”. I am one of those people who were teaching in the universities. The parallel degree programme was, indeed, one of the sources of finances but, looking at it critically, I think it is so unfair to treat children of poor parents in this way. Most of the students who get C+ and B- grades come from poor families. They might even have qualified for admission to national schools but, because those schools are very expensive, they went to day schools. So, they managed to pass with C+ and B- grades. These are the students who are being subjected to applying for the parallel degree programmes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister was here the other month. She said that she had requested Treasury to allocate more funds to the HELB, so that these children can have a chance to be given loans like the rest of the students. We want to request the Minister that in the Supplementary Estimates, she brings forward that proposal, so that we can support it. A deliberate move should be made to ensure that we scrap the idea of “parallel degree programmes”, and also do away with the practice of categorising students as belonging to parallel and regular programmes. Let us find a way of paying lecturers well, so that they do not waste much of their time moonlighting, or moving from one university to another. We also find that there are many universities that have started what are perceived to be marketable programmes---"
}