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{
    "id": 185164,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/185164/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you Mr. Minister for giving me two minutes to contribute to this very important debate on a Ministry in which I was resident for over 20 years. This is the Ministry that I believe is working and has the right experts. I want to congratulate them for their foresightedness in the things that they are doing. I have only three points that arise from education for all. When we talk of education for all in this country, we must practise that. There are a few things that I would like to urge the Minister to pay attention to: First, is the issue of marginal areas. Which areas are marginal? We need to really look at them, analyze them according to development and even consider the distribution of teachers. I have two locations in my constituency that border Marakwet and Keiyo, which are marginal. When teachers think of going to those two locations, they would rather go to Marakwet, because they will be given hardship allowance; so, mine are the most deserted locations. Again, that means that we need to look at the policy on transfer of teachers. Why are teachers being transferred out of marginal areas? I have a school which has four teachers and another one has three Government teachers, because of transfers that were effected. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue is the Information Communication Technology (ICT), which is a welcome move, but I ask myself: How many schools have electricity? Recently, we were informed of solar energy being used in Turkana, but how many schools have them, so that we can talk of equality of education, because all students are going to be assessed equally? We must think about that, and the Ministry must pay attention to it. The other issue is that of tuition. We know that there is a difference between private schools and public schools. If the Minister's submission is that public and private schools should continue with their tuition, because they have very many ways of doing it--- In fact, in some cases they use the public schools' teachers to implement their tuition. What happens is that we continue to receive students from rich families in our universities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what happens, and they know it because they have been professors in the universities themselves is that, we continue to receive only rich students in universities. That is because the tuition that takes place in private schools obviously means that the results that come from private schools are better than those of public schools. We have the very problem that hon. Ethuro has been talking about since morning; that Turkanas have been marginalised systematically. We may not be doing it consciously, but if our policies do not capture some of those issues, it would destroy us. So, I think the Minister should rethink and have a team to investigate exactly what we mean by tuition. What we are saying is that we are all happy if there is no tuition because our kids can play and relax. But if that is going to be done in an imbalanced way--- We know that the computerised admission system in the universities draws a line against a map. We are going to leave out the poor and very soon, the universities will belong to the rich. With those few remarks, I beg to support. Thank you, honourable Minister for your generosity. October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2603"
}