Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1511737,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1511737/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 108,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "South Mugirango, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Silvanus Osoro",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. I also want to bring to the attention of this House and perhaps deliberate on something that happened this week when the Ministry of Education issued a directive for the closure of 348 boarding primary schools. Going through the report, while we appreciate the Government's effort to make sure that every boarding primary school is compliant, the directive may have come out of a panic reaction. What the Ministry did is that after the incident in Nyeri, which was very unfortunate, it sent its officers to boarding schools to inspect and confirm compliance. And then they gave directives. Some were given three months to comply, others a month, and others even two weeks. What is more shocking is that the ministry officials did not go back after three months to confirm compliance by re-inspecting the affected schools so that they could decide whether to close them or not. They chose to use the inspection report done three months prior without re-inspecting. There is one particular case in my Constituency where I was apprised of an issue in a school called Metaburo Primary School, which has existed for several years. When the school officials brought to my attention what they wanted to be done in the school for compliance, we committed and invested in that school. They built a new dormitory and every required structure. However, I still saw the school on the list as closed because they had not re- inspected it. Looking at the education challenges we face, such as issues of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), Grade 9, people struggling with school fees, the holiday and economic challenges, parents are left confused about what to do when schools resume in January. They have been told that their children can now be day scholars. One of the reasons why students go to boarding schools is because of distance and the choice of school. You cannot tell a parent who lives in Nairobi and has his child in a Nyeri boarding school that they will now be going as a day scholar from Nyeri to Nairobi. There ought to have been a timeline, or more or less, for lack of a better word, a moratorium of the timeline so that they could comply gradually. We should not be making panic reactions when such incidents occur. So, I bring this to the attention of this House so that we can deliberate and see what will happen to the affected parents in January. The Chairman of the Committee, I do not know whether he is here, should guide us and tell us what exactly should be done. Thank you."
}