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{
    "id": 1439771,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1439771/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 199,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Irene Mayaka",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me this opportunity. I also stand to join my colleagues in supporting this very progressive Bill by Hon. Lesuuda. We thank her for bringing this Bill to the Floor of the House. Hon. Temporary Speaker, one of the things that I like about this Bill is that it seeks to introduce a proper process and structure on how internship is managed in this country, specifically in the public service sector. I would like to mention some of the clauses that I find very progressive. Clause 6 is on the declaration of opportunities. Clause 8 talks about a management committee of internship and Clause 11 states that interns should be provided with a personal accident insurance cover that is valid for the period of internship. These are very progressive clauses because they speak directly to the management of internships. They will ensure that the human resource departments in the public service give interns specific protection in terms of the cover and that the procedure within which it has been laid down is properly followed because it is now covered in the Bill. This will also ensure that we avoid cherry-picking when it comes to internship procedures where each department decides on its own on how to manage the interns. The issue of interns will be centrally managed. However, there is something I feel we should borrow from the private sector on how they manage internships and trainees. In the private sector, they not only have internships for graduates, but they also have management trainees. This is especially practiced in the banking industry. By doing that, they recruit fresh graduates who are also trained to be in the management space. Right now, if one wants to get into a management job, one of the conditions is that you must have 10 years of working experience. I also encourage our young people to quickly get into the management space so that, they are not only employed as clerks, but they also get an opportunity to be actual managers within the working space. This is something that the public service sector should borrow from the private sector so that we encourage more and more young people to get into management space as early as we can. Hon. Temporary Speaker, there are young parliamentarians in the current Parliament. They did not wait until they were much older to be here. We should encourage young people to get into leadership spaces as early as they can. I would like us to borrow the best practice from countries like England, China and Thailand, on how they run their internship programmes. There is an automatic absorption of interns. I hope that in future, when this Bill becomes more progressive and the structures are engraved in our public service, the interns will be given first priority in absorption into permanent and pensionable positions. The other thing that I would like to encourage is that after graduation, we adopt the first-in, first-out criterion in employment. This means that the people who graduate first are considered before the younger ones. Currently, most advertisements for internship positions indicate preference for interns aged between 18 and 24 years and yet, there are Kenyans who did not have an opportunity to go to college immediately. They joined higher learning institutions, when they could afford it. They do not get these opportunities because they are The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}