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{
    "id": 1476566,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1476566/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 117,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nairobi City County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Esther Passaris",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Today, we are doing something wrong. We are making children to grow up with very low self-esteem. Yesterday, a mother called me and said she was depressed and was tired of walking in town with her child. Can you imagine what was going through that child's mind? Her mother was walking from one Mheshimiwa’s office to another, begging for school fees so that she can go back to school and sit for her examinations. That child will be demoralised and emotionally messed up. I felt I needed to do something about it. There is also lack of standardised criteria in bursary selection. How do we decide who requires a bursary? We need to ensure it is free for all so that we do not have inequality, favouritism and inefficiency in awarding bursaries. A Member of Parliament who uses a maximum of Ksh70 million from his NG-CDF to give bursaries does not reach everyone, and not every child he gives Ksh5,000, Ksh10,000 or Ksh15,000 will complete school. They will drop out if they are in a boarding school because they require Ksh53,000. If you give a child Ksh15,000 which is the highest ceiling, they will still be sent home. We are spending too much money on education. We give between Ksh600 and Ksh700 billion to the Ministry of Education and teachers. This is the case and yet children are sent back home and the quality of education is going down. Schools perform badly because half the time the student are at home. In a year, some students spend one term at home. Can you imagine what is happening? This brings about teenage pregnancies and consumption of drugs since the parents go to work and a child is left unattended at home. We need to be serious about this free and compulsory basic education. You cannot tell a chief to pick children transitioning from primary school to secondary school who have not reported to school. Which school will he take them? First of all, they have no uniform which to me is overrated and a colonial thing. The Government, through the National Youth Service (NYS), can provide free standardised uniforms to children. Many times, I go to a school and see a young girl who besides being sent home, is wearing faded torn clothes. This affects her self-esteem. Can you imagine the stigma that child goes through? Why can we not provide basic school uniforms and books? I am very proud of the choice that His Excellency, the President, made by nominating Mr Julius Migos Ogamba, as the Cabinet Secretary for Education. I interacted with him when he came to Parliament to answer Questions and he is hands-on and gets it! I actually talked with him this morning, and I told him that besides giving the Ministry money and making sure it gets capitation to schools, the order and the system of capitation have to be managed. If we amalgamate our bursaries, it might amount to about Ksh60 to Ksh70 billion, which is about 10 per cent of what it is right now. All we are saying is that we want the Government to provide free, basic and compulsory education. No child should be at home. Build more and more secondary schools. If we say it is free education tomorrow, we will need to construct extra classrooms. The construction of more classrooms will be based on one man, one shilling. What is going to happen is that we will have certain constituencies where schools will be overwhelmed, and they will need more classrooms. We will have makeshift tents and hire teachers. The Government will then come to explain to the citizens the amount of money it will need to collect. But before the Government asks for money from citizens, it needs to account for the money it will get. I know that to provide free and basic education, we will probably need more than Ksh1 trillion. But what matters is if the schools perform well with that kind of money. Will we be devolving corruption to the schools? I have heard people say that within the various funds, there is corruption. We really need to have moral reflection as a country, as leaders and parents. It is not just leaders who are corrupt but also parents and citizens. It is a chain reaction for everything that is going on in this country. We have to ensure that we collect and disperse the resources. If the Government is going to give capitation and does not send the correct 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."
}