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"id": 185399,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/185399/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Ruteere",
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"speaker": {
"id": 92,
"legal_name": "Silas Muriuki Ruteere",
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I rise to support the Motion that the Minister has elaborated very comprehensively. We have taken what he has said. But I also want him to note our concerns as regards to what is \"eating\" his Ministry and some of the concerns of the parents. First, I want to say that education is not static anywhere in the world. Education has trends that are dynamic. Those dynamics are dictated by social changes, political visions like the one we have - Vision 2030 - and economic policies of the country. In this country, we have a lot that we are putting in our plates and our children are expected to eat it all. For them to be fed or shown how to eat, we need a vibrant teaching profession. We need teachers to be happy and not to be psyched into wanting to know what their unions are doing. Actually, the Government should be ahead of the unions. That is because if it is the trade unions that will be dictating the terms, then that momentum of teachers wanting to work will be lost. For this reason, while I appreciate what the Minister did to suppress the strike that was coming from the Kenya Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), I would urge that he handles the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) also very quickly so that, at this time when teachers are very busy preparing the pupils, they are not also directed to another place of wanting to know what their union is saying about their welfare. Let that welfare be the concern of the Ministry, parents and the union. If that is so, even what we are debating about performance contracts and other things may not necessarily be there. There will not be much of a debate. So, the welfare of teachers and their salaries should be paramount for the trends in education to be taken care of very well. They are the ones who adapt to any kind of educational change and impart it to the children. I would also like the Ministry to know that headteachers who have had some kind of managerial and administrative training perform very well. They should have in-service courses and other courses and training for headteachers who have been appointed. That is because, sometimes, a headteacher is appointed and it takes up to five years before he undergoes any training. When I was appointed a headteacher in January, I attended courses in April, August and December. I graduated in that December. I had three months of training as a headteacher. I can assure you that I was a very effective headteacher. Further to that, the Ministry found me very hard working and sent me abroad to study. That is because it recognized my work. But these days, the work of teachers is not recognized. Those who are recognized are appointed as administrators instead of being sent elsewhere and come and do the administration in the classroom. So, we deny the administration in 2520 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 7, 2008 the classrooms very effective teachers. We should be concerned about the abuse of drugs in our schools. That is a very dangerous trend. I knew of a place in our area where the headteachers knew who was trafficking the drugs. Whenever the police were called, those headteachers were cautioned and received threatening messages from the drug traffickers. It is upon the Ministry to assure the headteachers of their safety, so that they can expose some of those drug traffickers because they are known. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, currently, we have street boys; they are emerging when they had gone away. It should be the Ministry's concern that if we have free education, why should we have street boys in our towns? Why is it that they are coming back? What is wrong? What can be done to ensure that they are in schools? There is a very sensitive issue that is coming up here, namely gender. When you talk of the girl child, in Meru, where I come from, I talk of the gender of the boy child. The boy child is the one who is at risk where I come from. If you are giving money for girls in other areas, give money for boys in Imenti North District. So, let us have parity! We have statistics. Why do we not look at statistics and see that a specific area needs a specific gender to be encouraged while another area needs the other gender to be encouraged instead of talking of the boy child and the girl child? Here I have always heard of the girl child emphasis while the contrary is true elsewhere. On the issue of guidance and counselling, we would like the teachers who are doing this to be recognised and allocated special duties. They should be the ones who should handle discipline in the schools, because children these days are not caned. We appreciate that the cane cannot come back, no matter how much we talk. This is a different age with different trends that is with it. We cannot go back to the cane. I would stand and be canned ten or 20 times; the teacher did whatever he wanted to do and I would walk away. But today I cannot give my boy a cane; he will run out of the home. Finally, because we have money that we promised each school, we need to disburse it. In Imenti North District, secondary schools did not get their operations money. They got it for the third term but what happened to the second term? This kind of imbalance causes a lot of problems. The teachers will go to the wrong vote, get the money and when you give the fees guideline--- Once there is a need for fees guidelines like now, bear in mind that food and fuel costs are very expensive; so, we need a revision of the fees guidelines very quickly. Otherwise, if things go wrong in the schools, we will start to see a series of other strikes. Let us arrest the situation before such strikes arise. Let us make good use of all our facilities in all the schools. Whatever we have should be utilised to the maximum. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}