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{
    "id": 1525197,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1525197/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 129,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nominated, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Dorothy Muthoni",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I rise to second and add my voice to this very important Bill. I want to thank Hon. Mary Wamaua for tabling The Basic Education (Amendment) Bill (National Assembly Bill No.59 of 2023) so that we can review the education structures in the country. As a country, we ought to acknowledge that devolution is in place, and its purpose is to bring services closer to the people. Citizens of this country should fully enjoy the fruits of devolution. That is the main objective of the Bill. The Bill recommends the establishment of a Sub-County Education Board consisting of a chairperson and six other members representing various stakeholders. The stakeholders are mentioned in the Bill. They must all be included in the composition of the Board for the proper running of the sub-counties. Sub-counties are important because the Sub-County Education Board will be a statutory body to ensure the existence of functional services in our education setup. In most cases, when something happens in schools, it takes time to go to a centralised and established education board. Our counties are vast and have many schools. Thus, establishing the Sub-County Education boards and decentralising services will make school management easier, and we will be able to monitor what happens in every corner of our schools. We have had issues of school unrest. We have seen students wake up in the wee hours to seek a listening ear from the District Education Board, several kilometres away, just because they want their principal transferred. If we establish the Sub-County Education boards, they could air their grievances without travelling too far. Some schools do not meet the threshold of established schools. However, since nobody is close enough to establish how the schools are run, we end up being reactive instead of proactive. Being proactive means that if services were closer to the sub-counties, we would be able to monitor at a close range what happens on a day- to-day basis. The key objective of the Bill is that the decentralised units will ensure efficiency in the running of our institutions. Also, there would be enhanced coordination because if the board members come from the school locale, it would be easier to meet all the stakeholders from time to time and review what is happening in the educational institutions. When the new university education funding model was being implemented, information was not able to reach the intended consumers; the parents, too, did not understand what it was all about; the students who were the beneficiaries did not understand it either. Those policies are established by the Ministry and disseminated to the education boards. They do not go beyond that. If the education boards were active and proactive, information on policies would reach each beneficiary within the shortest time possible. 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."
}