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"id": 185143,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Muturi",
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"legal_name": "Barnabas Muturi C. Mwangi",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to support the Minister for Education and his staff and congratulate them for a well done job so far. It is important for the House to note that quality education is expensive, and whatever allocation that has been given to the Ministry is, to say the least, inadequate. However, we may not have enough funds to give our country the best education we can afford, but we need to appreciate what the Government and the Ministry are doing towards all sectors that are relevant to the Ministry of Education. However, there may be need to make a few remarks. One of the areas that we need to address to get that kind of quality education we are looking 2594 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 8, 2008 for, is to make sure that the Quality Assurance and Standards Officers are adequate, properly trained and are facilitated. There is no need to come up with a superb curriculum and good facilities, while we cannot have people to do the job. There is need for the Government to support the Ministry of Education in that area. It has been an issue for many years. If you cannot get quality assurance officers to schools, then you have a problem in getting good results. Again, we have the problem of accountability in our schools, especially the secondary schools. Officers may wish to audit schools but there is a shortage of auditors and we need to facilitate them. If you go to most of the provinces, the auditing of books is in arrears and we may not catch up. We need to support the Ministry, and we may need more funds in the next financial year to do that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also another important area that this country is addressing like every country, and that is education for all. Currently the Ministry is doing their best but a lot has to be done. Maybe, the leaders need to get to their areas and see what is happening, because as you travel around the country, you still find in some of our districts, many children loitering in shopping centres and markets; they are not in school. How then do we achieve education for all? I think the Ministry needs support from all of us; all leaders, religious and community leaders, need to get our children to schools. I would probably suggest that the Ministry should liaise more closely with the Provincial Administration, the Chiefs and the Assistant Chiefs, to help us get our children to school. You wonder why these children are still out there, when each child gets over Kshs1,000 for teaching and learning materials. We need to look into that and support the Ministry, if we want to achieve education for all. There is also another area that, maybe, the country, and our leaders, should support the Ministry on, and it is early childhood education. Some of our areas in this country have not got up to early childhood education programmes. We need to support the Ministry and help these children get the basics before they get into primary schools. There is also the aspect of the free secondary school funding. Congratulations for doing something, Mr. Minister, but there is still need for improvement on the management of those funds. I would also like to congratulate the Ministry because of providing some funds for infrastructure. Some of our schools in the rural areas are needy. The classrooms have fallen down, the floors need repair, there are no toilets in some of those areas and we need to support the Ministry and get the primary schools, at least, reasonable infrastructure so as to provide quality education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need the Ministry to come up with an admission policy. What happens when children are being admitted to Form I? Other secondary schools need to be streamlined with regard to maintaining good discipline. I think principals, DEOs and Provincial Directors of Education should guide boards of governors on admission policies. Distribution of Form I places in some of the disadvantaged areas needs to be given consideration. It is good to look at the academic performance, but we also have pockets of poverty all over the country, and these areas need attention if there is going to be equity. The staffing issue has been discussed by all hon. Members who have spoken, but I would like to recall that there were days when this country posted P1 teachers nationally. This is important for us, and we request the Minister to look into this matter. I do accept that we do not have enough teachers. We have enough trained teachers. The distribution and funding are what is important. Why would you expect a semi-arid area that has had no students who qualified according to the requirements by the Ministry to go back and teach those poor children? Why is it not time that we, Kenyans, became nationalistic and got these P1s right from the beginning posted nationally? Some of the areas will keep on getting academically poor teachers, just because there is this aspect of tribalistic practice of posting teachers to where they were born. They were born in Kenya and it is high time we changed our IDs to read \"Kenya\". Some of the teachers who have been trained, and October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2595 on whom parents have spent a lot of money, are still at home. Why do you not post them nationally and ensure that those areas that have no teachers get enough teachers to teach our children. They are all Kenyans, irrespective of where they were born. Those pockets of poverty need consideration. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also need to look at the training of graduate teachers. Is it the core subject that they take more time on when they are at the university, or is it the methodology? We need the content! I think it would be better if we had to assess the kind of training--- If you take an example of somebody who is going to teach Biology and Chemistry, how much time does he or she spend at the university doing the core subject, so that he or she can deliver when you post them to a secondary school? I think that is another area that we need to look into; it is important because the performance of our secondary schools needs to be improved. The other issue that we, probably, need to look into is the teachers' salaries; this has been mentioned severally. There is need for harmonisation of teachers' salaries with salaries of civil servants. It is taking too long to do that! Take the case of principals of our secondary schools. Maybe, it is time we started posting these principals and creating substantive posts for them. Now, they are deployed, but are they committed enough when they compare themselves with the same civil servants posted to their areas? Again, on the training of principals, a lot needs to be done on human resource management and financial aspects. What they are trained on is inadequate. We need to train them more and, again, we need to emphasise that we need managers. We need our education institutions to be managed well. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to support one of my colleagues who spoke about role models. I think most of our secondary school students look upon us, leaders, as role models. How do we behave? I think it leaves a lot to be desired when our students look at us and see the way we behave when we are not in our places. For us to consider education successful, we need to support the Minister in areas of staffing and the provision of learning and teaching materials. There is no need of putting up very beautiful classrooms when there are no teachers, adequate learning and teaching materials! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to look at schools development. Some of our secondary schools in some parts of our country are too close. They are not cost-effective. I think there is need to put some together. I think we need to convince our communities that there is need to have good secondary schools, where the teachers will deliver. Cost-effectiveness in the management of our education should be looked into. Let us not start clan secondary schools! That will not help us a lot. Some of our students will still get poor services because of lack of teachers because of inadequate distribution. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to support the Ministry. Our leaders should support quality facilities. If they do that, we shall be able to move forward. We shall provide quality education for everybody in this country. Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir."
}