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"speaker_name": "Mr. Nyambati",
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"legal_name": "Walter Enock Osebe Nyambati",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the Vote of this very important Ministry. Allow me to begin by thanking the Minister for Education and the staff of the Ministry for the wonderful work that they are doing for this country. I know for sure that it has not been easy given that we had a lot of problems at the beginning of the year. Our children and schools had a lot of problems. I want to say that the Ministry of Education is very important because it takes care of our children. Any nation which cannot invest in its youth and children is doomed. So, I really congratulate the Ministry officials for the good work that they are doing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to also thank the Government for the free primary and secondary education that we are now having in the country. I further want to thank the Ministry for the bursaries that we are getting for our children. I want to say that in my constituency of Kitutu Masaba, we have a policy that all orphans in the constituency are educated free. We pay 100 per cent of their fees courtesy of the bursary from the Ministry of Education. I am very grateful. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I really want to say that, recently, we had the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology going round working on the issues of strikes among our schools. I want to urge the Ministry of Education to seriously look into this matter together with the other Ministries so that we do not have our children going on strikes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is about time that we teach our children to be patriotic. This is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Education alone, nor is it the responsibility of the teachers alone. It is even more the responsibility of parents. Parents have abdicated their duties of counselling and talking to their children. Until and unless we work together as a team, we will continue having those problems. We will start blaming our teachers and the Ministry. I want to say that it is important that parents also seriously take their role of counselling their children. I want to support one of my colleagues who said that the amendment of the Education Act is long overdue. That Act must be amended. We do not want to see every Tom, Dick and Harry meddling in the matters of education. Religious organisations have interfered too much in terms of October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2587 running of our schools. We want to leave that to the Ministry of Education so that our children can get education. We do not mind our children getting nourishment in terms of spiritual food. But we do not want them meddling in the matters of education. It has become so difficult, especially where I come from. Religious matters are interfering too much with the education of our children. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say here and now that I have a problem in my constituency of Kitutu Masaba in terms of staffing. There are no schools in my constituency which have half of the teachers that they require. Most of the schools have less teachers. I know several secondary schools which are supposed to have 15 teachers and yet, there are five or four teachers. We cannot blame the Ministry of Education for that deficiency. I know for sure we have trained teachers. It is about time that this House and country funds the Ministry fully, so that it can employ enough teachers to teach our children. You cannot expect a school to perform when it has four teachers instead of 15 teachers. We have teachers languishing at home. I urge the Minister for Education to bring a supplementary Motion so that we can fund the Ministry, so that our schools can have enough teachers. I am sure every Member of Parliament will be willing to support that because, if we cannot invest in our children--- Our children are everything. They are our future. They are the future of the nation. If we cannot invest in our children, then we have a problem. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is an important thing and I would like the Minister for Education to take note so that we fund the Ministry fully, so that we can have enough teachers. I can name several schools in my constituency which are experiencing staffing problems. Schools like Bowendo and Gesure are supposed to have 16 to 17 teachers and yet, they have two to three teachers. How do you expect them to perform? They cannot perform! Yet, we spend so much money on other issues and things which are irrelevant. This is the Ministry that we must fund. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want also to address the issue of teachers salaries. I think it is important that the Ministry reviews teachers salaries vis-a-vis other civil servants. I think this is one of the countries which pays its teachers the poorest. Even most of the African countries pay their teachers well. Until and unless we pay them well, you cannot expect them to perform. So, I want to submit here that we need to review our teachers salaries. We do not want them to go on strike and then we start negotiating. We want to be reviewing their salaries together with the rest of the civil servants. They are very important and they do a very important job for this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also want to say that our principals in several schools must be trained on managerial courses, so that they can be accountable and run schools in the right way. I think it is important that we take them for in-service course or other courses so that our principals who are the returning officers in those schools, are able to manage the finances of our schools properly. The Ministry has to do something about the officers who inspect our schools. If we cannot give those officers transport to inspect schools, you cannot expect them to do any work which is credible. So, I want to suggest that the Ministry looks into that kind of thing and give transport to those officers who do inspection in our schools. Apart from that, I just want to say that there are also many private colleges and institutions which train students in different subjects. I want to ask the Ministry of Education to ensure that whatever they train in is in line with the Ministry, so that we have standardisation of different courses that are done either by Government institutions or private institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to finish by commending the work that has been done by officers of the Ministry and tell them to continue. I wish to tell them that they have a noble duty to do for this country. As I have said, we must create an environment where our children can learn well. We must encourage our children to dream to be anything that they want to be, so that they can believe in the beauty of that dream. They can be anything that they want to be, if they work hard and play by the rules. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
}