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{
    "id": 1474863,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1474863/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 382,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr Julius Ogamba",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Education",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "were here I was told that sometimes uniforms cost more than what we pay. Therefore, primary school education is not truly free. We should have that conversation. If we say that primary school education is free, is it truly and legally free or are there other costs that come in and make it impossible to say it is free? So, it is something that the Ministry is grappling with to find the best way to deal with that aspect of the Board of Management, which usually comes about because perhaps we do not have enough teachers in those institutions and parents have to employ BOM teachers to support the schools. So, it is something that we are dealing with, but it is also tied to the funding and the capacity of the Government to ensure that we have enough teachers in each and every institution. Hon. Lelmengit raised concerns that we are addressing a problem with different solutions. It is true that in the committees that we have constituted, we put in a number of analysts and data statisticians to look at this model to ensure that it is as effective as possible, so that it can work and we get results that will be as close as possible to the reality of each individual. There is also the issue of the ongoing strikes. The UASU strike is currently ongoing. We tried to avert it, but we did not manage to do so. They have not signed the CBA for 2021 to 2025. We are at the tail end of that cycle. They also have issues relating to the CBA of 2017 to 2021. There are one or two issues pending with the implementation of that CBA. This is again tied down to the questions relating to availability of resources because of budgetary constraints. You again tie it down to our Finance Bill. We were trying to negotiate for more time with them, to ensure that we come up with an answer or an amicable solution to handle the issues that they have. We are going to have another meeting with them tomorrow to see whether we can reduce the gap, and maybe they will go back to work. Therefore, we are doing something about it in the difficult situation that we are in because we have to accept that we cannot run the Ministry on the basis of strikes. It takes a lot of time, resources and energy."
}