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{
    "id": 1506197,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1506197/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 523,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "an Identification Card. It is on that basis that they were told they could not access the loan facility. What we forget is that there is no way any child in this country can join university in the First Year and leave at the end of the Fourth Year without attaining the age of 18 years. That means at some point in that process the student will be 18 years old, and he will have an Identification Card. Therefore, as a country, we should think of a way of ensuring that a student who does not have a national identification card – because he is underage – accesses the loan facility through a proxy signatory. Upon attaining the statutory age of 18 and acquiring a national Identification Card, the proxy signatory can formally withdraw from that role and the student takes over. If that is done, our underage students will be facilitated. As it has been rightly put by a Member, during our time, it was not possible to join university before you were 18 years old. Some of us went through a mandatory pre-university National Youth Service (NYS) programme, which delayed our joining university. By the time we joined university, we were almost 20 years old, which means we did not have age-related problems. However, because of what is happening today, children are joining school at age six or five. Since they are more intelligent than our generation, they go through their studies without repeating any class. They complete Form IV at the age of 17. We must thank Hon. Kamene for her attempt to amend this law. I request Hon. Members to support this Amendment Bill so that students who come to us with such challenges can access university education without any problem. We all know that if we sort out this matter, it will offer the right direction in sorting out the other matters. A number of Members have said that this sector has a lot of challenges. The other challenge that all of us are facing is banding of students. Students are put in different bands. A student can come to you and you know his home, parents and siblings yet he has been placed in Band Four when ideally he should be in Band One. When you try to get the rationale as to why he has been placed in that band, you fail to understand it based on his situation. A lot of things need to be streamlined in this sector. We need to support the Departmental Committee on Education and Hon. Kamene so that we streamline this important sector. If we do not get it right in our education sector, I want to say without fear of contradiction that future generations will be challenged; especially in terms of taking this country to the next level since human resource is the most important resource in any country in terms of development matters. We must improve the education sector by streamlining the issues raised in this Bill. With those remarks, I support the Amendment Bill."
}