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"id": 185142,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/185142/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. ole Metito",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Regional Development Authorities",
"speaker": {
"id": 199,
"legal_name": "Judah Katoo Ole-Metito",
"slug": "judah-ole-metito"
},
"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the chance to support this very important Motion. Let me join my colleagues who have spoken earlier in confirming that this Ministry has really done a lot in the last six years. It has really tried its best to accelerate the levels of education in our country; from primary to secondary. But there are still some challenges that need to be addressed. First, there is issue of Early Childhood Education. When the Minister was moving this Motion yesterday, he talked about an increased budget - almost five-fold - and even the increasing of training centres from about 4,000 to 8,000. That shows that there is going to be high production in those institutions. But the challenge is that we are training so many ECD teachers, but we are not absorbing them at the community level. I would actually urge the Ministry to come up with a system of employing those nursery school teachers. That is because education in primary and secondary schools is both free and partially free, respectively. You cannot join a primary school without going through the ECD system, which is not free. I think we are going to make things difficult. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Ministry is so important that over 50 per cent of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) money has gone into education through the provision of physical infrastructure. That is what I call the hardware part of it. But the Government has to supply the software, both in terms of staffing and the working tools such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is high time that the Ministry introduces ICT in all our public secondary schools. In that regard, I would kindly inform the Minister that we have built very many secondary schools using the CDF money in all our constituencies. We have built them in the very remote areas where there is no supply of electricity. So, this Ministry should ensure that, at least, there is electricity supply in all our public secondary schools, through the provision of solar systems, so that students in those schools can actually compete with their counterparts in urban and town centres. The provision of energy through solar system can assist us in ensuring that ICT is also taught in those institutions. It will also help in the laboratories and libraries. Those students who do not have electricity cannot actually do much even if we build those institutions. We are trying to go down to the very rural areas where secondary schools are not available. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think every hon. Member who has spoken has actually talked about staffing. We are talking about staffing because of the very uneven distribution of teachers in this country. You will find that a student in Loitokitok cannot actually compete with the one in Nairobi, because their working environment, tools and facilities are very different. That brings us to the issue of performance contracts for the teachers. I do not think we can have uniform performance contracts for all the teachers in this country. Their working and performance targets cannot be uniform because their working environment, tools and facilities are totally different in this country. You cannot tell a teacher in Nairobi who is teaching in a school that has no shortage of even a single teacher to have the same performance target with a teacher in the Arid and Semi- Arid Lands (ASALs), where there are only four teachers in a school that requires over 12 teachers. Even the facilities that they use are very different from those used by those in urban areas. So, when it comes to staffing, I really want to agree with my colleague who has just spoken, Dr. Mwiria, on the issue of delocalization. But when you delocalize--- Because right now, the set-up of teachers' recruitment is actually district based--- They are being recruited by the District Education Boards (DEBs). One of the qualifications is that you must come from that district. I must congratulate the Minister for October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2593 Education for laying on the Table of this House, a list showing the shortage of teachers in all the districts in this country, just before we went on recess. That translated to the allocation that we were given as districts. You can be given an allocation of about 40 teachers as a district, but you cannot raise them just because the same criteria was not used when the teachers were being recruited to join teacher training colleges. Nowadays, they are not only having the issue of a minimum of Grade \"C\", but they have also embarked on a system called computerisation, where you forward the names from all the districts, but they are selected using a computer system at the headquarters. You will find that after doing that, most of the districts in this country are left without sending a single student to a teacher training college, despite the fact that they have some who have attained a minimum of Grade \"C\". So, I would ask the Minister to reconsider that computerised system of selecting people who join teacher training colleges, and make it district based. That way, Loitokitok, for example, we are sure that even if it is that Grade \"C\" - even though we are pushing for the grade to be lowered for ASALs - we can be given an allocation of 40 to send to teacher training colleges. When it comes to recruitment, and we are given the 40 slots, we can be sure that we can get all of them from that district. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the issue of monitoring and evaluation has to go with mobilisation. If the DEOs do not have the facilities to actually reach those schools--- Some of the schools are located deep in the rural areas. There is no way the DEOs can actually embark on quality assurance. So, I would like to ask the Ministry - even if it is difficult to allocate vehicles to all the DEOs in this country - to allocate, at least, motorbikes for all education inspectors in every division. Every one of them should have that motorbike for mobilisation. I want to talk about the issue of bursaries. Now that we are having free or partially free secondary school education, the transition rate from primary to secondary schools has risen. So, let us try and see whether we can double that. On the issue of measuring the performance of teachers, we should not do it only through performance contracts. I think there is another way. My proposal is that to ensure effectiveness in that school, let us come up with a system that will ensure that no teacher should teach a particular school for more that five years. Then you actually transfer them within that same district. There is nothing wrong with that. We have seen some cases where a teacher has taught in a particular school for over 20 years. I think it becomes business as usual and the productivity falls below standards. So, I request that we come up with a system that we will empower the District Education Officers (DEOs) to reshuffle teachers, and not only principals, to ensure that you can teach in every school for a specific period in a specific district. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of teacher training colleges, I would like to kindly ask the Ministry to take into account the arid areas and, at least, ensure that half of the arid districts have teacher training colleges. Seventy per cent of this country is arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs). However, when you try to count the number of teacher training colleges in this country, 70 per cent or more are in urban areas and that locks out students from arid areas from accessing very important education. We said that one of the pillars of the Ministry of Education is \"access to education by all\". With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}