Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1439744,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1439744/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 172,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Emurua Dikirr, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Johana Kipyegon",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "There are labour laws which should govern each employee or the intern. I wish the Departmental Committee on Labour and Social Welfare would relook at the labour laws so that people would not be dismissed arbitrarily. Any person who is to be dismissed should be given a fair hearing both by the agency or the department that is intending to dismiss them up to the level of the courts. Sometimes, the agencies become partisan and behave in an unruly way. People should be allowed to appeal and seek assistance outside the areas where they serve. If it is in the Kenya Police Service, it should not be a closed case that the Kenya Police Service or the Kenya Defence Forces has dismissed someone based on their own judgements. Internships, like most Hon. Members have said, are vital for most unemployed youth who have just finished university or college. Like my colleagues have said, when an intern is put in that position, they teach or work like any other person. The first priority should be the kind of stipend the intern should be paid. Those people are overworked in schools with many subjects, lessons and students to teach, unlike the ones who are permanently employed. The stipend the interns receive must be in tandem with the work. The rule should not be the decision of the body that is employing the interns that determines the stipend. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) should determine the amounts of stipend to be paid to the interns. People should not take advantage of those interns because they are mostly vulnerable people who do not have the capacity to negotiate. I also believe that an intern is a very qualified person to be employed. I like the way the Bill says that the maximum number of months an intern should work is 12 months. After 12 months, what happens? Mostly, those are people who are properly qualified to be employed. Unfortunately, most of those interns, after completing the number of months they are supposed to work as interns, go home. I am proposing an amendment to this Bill that every intern who has worked must be employed or confirmed immediately after the number of months that they have successfully served as an intern. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) employed over 30,000 interns. That means there is a shortage of teachers. So, if you engage interns for only 12 months and you dismiss them, what does that tell you? What are you going to do to the positions that were vacant before you brought in the interns? This does not apply to TSC only, but also to other agencies. It means there is a shortage of employees in those particular agencies. Therefore, I wish to include in this Bill that, upon the completion of the internship period, all the interns should be confirmed and employed permanently by the State agency or the department where they are working. This will assure them of employment. We lack so many teachers in the education sector. Most schools do not have enough teachers. Every school lacks almost five or ten teachers. Why can we not employ interns permanently? I support this Bill and indicate that we should not exploit interns. They are our children, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters."
}