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{
    "id": 1563808,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563808/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 216,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "resources for purposes of benefiting from it other than it benefitting the people. If they do that, we can actually have free secondary education and free university education. Why am I saying this, Madam Temporary Speaker? I was in this House when Sen. Thang’wa started this conversation. He did some math on the different bursaries that we have in this country I hope he will not forget that math when he stands to respond. He started from the MPs who are spending a number of billions of shillings to give out bursaries. Despite the fact that secondary school, primary school as well as university education are not devolved as per our Constitution, we have seen governors giving bursaries. They should not be spending the budget meant for devolved functions into national functions. We have seen governors spending not less than Kshs400 million a year on bursaries. This happens even in smaller counties like Lamu that Senators are always fighting for in order for them to get monies. Some counties have now gone ahead to spend to a tune of a billion in this monster called bursary. I understand the sense of access to education and how this could help, but if you take a wave and dissect how this bursary is manifesting in our communities, you will realize that there is a lot of wastage and leakages of those monies structurally. The wastage between Members of National Assembly and governors when delivering bursary means that what ends up reaching the schools cannot keep the children at school. The current capitation that is needed for secondary education is about Kshs65 to Kshs70 billion. That Kshs70 billion assumes that it is a day school which it is financed at about Kshs22,000 per student every year. If you do the math with about four million students, you will realize that the amount of money that is just between the governors and Members of the National Assembly is more than the capitation needed for secondary school education. When Sen. Thang’wa was presenting this idea of consolidation of bursaries brought to the enlightenment of this House bursary funds that are being managed in the Office of the Deputy President and the Office of the President. These bursaries then end up being a tokenism system. The sense of it then stops being access to education but glorification of the political class administering that bursary. I say that because you can go to the defective nature of these bursary allocations in different factors. If you track those leakages, you will see the leakages that I am talking about that can save us money to make the entire education problem in this country free. The education system in this country can be free from kindergarten to the university level. I will start with the first one, the inadequate funding of students. Picture this, you are invited to go to Agoro Sare Secondary School or Makueni Girls, as a young person in this country. You are then told that the school fees is Kshs60,000 and your Member of Parliament gives you Kshs5,000 as a bursary, which you have to apply through a committee that has been put together. After that, your parents have to queue for that Kshs5,000. There are times when they have to follow the Member of Parliament to give them that Kshs5,000 yet that student needs Kshs60,000 to go to school. How is this adequate funding for this student to acquire education? It defeats logic. It defeats logic when a student who is to raise Kshs60,000 or Kshs100,000 is given The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}