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"id": 185397,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/185397/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Chepkitony",
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"speaker": {
"id": 13,
"legal_name": "Lucas Kipkosgei Chepkitony",
"slug": "lucas-chepkitony"
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"content": "Thank you very much, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute in support of this Motion. First of all, I would like to commend the Ministry for the efforts it has made in managing the education system, particularly this year after the post-election crisis. It was critical for the Ministry to implement FSEP at the time we had just come from the 2007 General Election crisis, but it managed to implement the policy. The Ministry has taken over the Adult Education Program which for many years has not been effective. I hope that now the Ministry of Education has taken up that programme, they are going to perform and we will see the results. We expect the teachers in the Adult Education Programme to work so that we can see better performance in that area. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the quality of our education was threatened when it was alleged that there was leakage of examinations last year. Although the Ministry handled the issue well, it is true that there were leakages. That affects the quality, credibility and, generally, the image of the education system in the country. So, I hope that has been addressed and we shall not have any more leakages in our 2516 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 7, 2008 schools. We have quality assurance officers who are charged with the responsibility of assessing the education and teaching standards. We have had problems, particularly in my district, whereby we do not have enough staff to foresee quality assurance. Even the quality assurance officer who was in charge of the district has not been there. One came at one time, but he was transferred. I hope small issues such as this one will be addressed by the Ministry so that we have good education management in our districts. Sometime ago, the Ministry of Education wrote to District Education Boards (DEBs) to set up centres of excellence for secondary schools. They advised that we choose two schools in every districts, that is, one for girls and another one for boys as centres of excellence. We have never heard any response after we forwarded the names of the schools. It looks like this issue was forgotten. I do not know what the current position of the Ministry of Education is on this matter. I do not know whether they will pursue this issue of setting up centres of excellence so that we do not rely only on the national schools, for example, Alliance High School. If we develop centres of excellence, they will assist in developing education in many areas. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the recent strikes in our schools was a big challenge to the Ministry of Education. We appreciate the way the matter was handled. We hope that this problem will be addressed adequately because it is not proper for children to burn schools. Something must have gone wrong. I hope the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology will come up with recommendations that will be taken seriously by the Ministry. However, one of the issues that could have led to the strikes is that if you go to certain secondary schools, you will realise that the headteachers in those schools have stayed there for, say, ten years and everybody is tired of them. Even the teachers in those schools are tired of their headteachers. Some teachers overstay in one school for over ten years. We need to transfer the teachers after working in one school for a period of, say, ten years or so. Nobody should overstay in a place until he or she retires. A change is as good as a rest. Let us have some changes in our institutions. Let us transfer teachers so that we can have a new brand who will run the schools. I want to support the idea of introducing ICT in all our primary and secondary schools. We need to introduce computer lessons in our schools. We are moving into ICT and this country will set up a computer village. There is a provision for that in the Budget. We, therefore, should move fast enough so that we can have the current generation learning ICT. The payment of Kshs10,000 for the secondary education is being overtaken by inflation. The cost of living has gone up. Food prices, the cost of electricity, fuel prices and travelling expenses have all gone up. I hope the Ministry is looking into this matter in an attempt to even adjust the Supplementary Budget. The idea was to assist parents who were unable to pay. Over 60 per cent of our population are poor people. They need to be supported. The FSEP is not really free. I think I would call it free day secondary education. This is because the money provided caters only for the day secondary schools. It does not cater for boarding. However, if it can be enhanced in future, it will assist very much. The cost of living has gone up and I hope the Ministry will convince the Treasury to give it more funds. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have low cost boarding primary schools in arid and semi-arid areas of the country which I would like the Ministry to continue supporting. There is an arid area in my constituency with such schools and the support from the Ministry is very little. I hope the Ministry will support the local boarding primary schools especially in those areas where education standards are still low and they are still disadvantaged up to now. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the allocation for secondary schools bursaries is low in the current Budget. I do not know the reason why. We used to have about Kshs800 million allocated for bursaries for secondary schools. We still require these bursaries because most of our students still go to boarding schools and the parents are unable to pay for boarding facilities. Even October 7, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2517 if we say we are paying for tuition through the free secondary education allocation, we still require to continue with the bursary scheme. It is very important and I hope that you will enhance this amount rather than reducing it like I see it has come down. I think we need to maintain what we have and even increase it, considering that the cost of education is very high. Let us still support it. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, on Early Childhood Education (ECD), I hope this can be fast tracked. About two years ago, we envisaged that it will be taken over in 2008/2009 as part of the primary education so that it is streamlined. We hope that nursery schools will be part of the management of primary schools and the teachers will be employed by the Ministry. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I want to talk about the school feeding programme which is very vital. Many families in the country cannot afford lunches and children really persevere a lot since there are poor people all over the country. We should support this programme. If the World Bank lends its support, we should encourage it to continue supporting it because Kenya is still a poor country. We cannot afford to do without this help. It assists to help children continue learning. I also want to talk about teacher training colleges. In my constituency or district, we have a teachers training college and it admits only four students from the whole district. We call it a joke because it is located there and yet it does not have any student from around that area. We know it is a national institution but at least give us a fair number of students. It will even assist those parents to cut the costs of travelling very far. It is very expensive these days to travel all the way to Garissa to train as teachers. Let those in Garissa go to institutions near Garissa and let us have at least a policy where we reduce the number of those travelling very far and those accommodating the colleges should have a fair share. Let them have slightly more numbers rather than admitting students from far areas. With those few remarks, I support."
}