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"speaker_name": "Mr. Jirongo",
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"content": "and, therefore, they must sign performance contracts. I want to believe that this is a wrong approach in handling teachers, bearing in mind that primary school teachers give us enough graduands and as a Government we have never had the capacity to offer enough spaces for these children in secondary schools. The secondary school teachers give us enough graduands to go to universities and as a Government, we have always failed to provide enough space in universities. The university lecturers also give us enough graduates and as a Government we have always been unable to provide employment to them. It is, therefore, imperative that the Ministry of Education while looking at issue of performance contracts ask themselves what they want to achieve by forcing teachers to sign performance contracts. This is because already they are performing. We are already failing to meet them even halfway. Now, why are we asking them to sign performance contracts? Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other issue that we need to look at very seriously is the partial free secondary education. We need to look at the country in general and national schools in this country. Look at the schools with the best facilities in this country. Why would a student in Garbatula not be given an opportunity like the student who lives in Kikuyu because of Alliance High School? The Ministry of Education needs to come up at least with a programme so that we have a model school for each constituency in this country which has all the facilities that are required so that at least every single child in our Republic has an opportunity to excel, just like those ones who happen to be in the right place and have access to better education facilities. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Education has, of course, tried but when you look at the way they are handling the whole thing, they are living on a very thin budget. There are many policy pronouncements that are made without clear planning. I want to believe that for some of the policy pronouncements like the free secondary education, I do not think we had put in enough planning to October 7, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2503 understand the implication of the whole thing. We have an overflow of students in secondary schools and yet we have not put together the infrastructure to cater for these children. Just as it is in primary schools, we have had a lot of children coming out to go to schools and most of them end up learning under trees. It is important as a Government, that before we make certain policy pronouncements, to be sure that we are prepared for them. We should not just make them for the sake of political mileage. It is also important that as we make those policy pronouncements, we are prepared to ensure the quality of education and the conditions under which our children go to school are palatable and acceptable. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
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