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"id": 207341,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs",
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"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
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"content": " Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to support this Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to congratulate Mr. Angwenyi for bringing an important Motion that forms a basis of what many of us have been saying over and over. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the free primary education that we are giving to Kenyans is something that everybody lauds. It is something that everybody is happy about. It is something that Kenyans are benefitting from. I think there has been some policy lapse somewhere, because primary education does not start at Standard One. We should go to Early Childhood Development (ECD) level, so that children are given a proper foundation. When you go to rural areas, you find that most of the nursery schools were left to be run by the local authorities; county councils and municipal councils. But because of either inadequate funding or sheer mismanagement, most of them have collapsed. Even where they exist, they have no teachers. Even where they have teachers, they are not trained! Where they are trained, they are inadequately prepared to prepare children for Standard One. Some of the institutions have employed teachers who are paid by the community. The communities never raise enough money to pay those teachers. There are no instruction materials. There are no teaching aids. There is no capacity or ability to give those little kids even a glass of milk like other better run private institutions which are only accessed by children from rich families. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I fully support that, whether we bring a Bill or not, the Ministry of Education should evolve a policy on how to manage pre-primary institutions. Ideally, each and every primary school should have a pre-primary unit. That unit must be fully equipped as part of the system of free primary education. That unit must be given enough teachers, not just one or two teachers. Because of the delicate nature of the children, those teachers should be properly trained. They should be trained in ways and means of handling kids, and even in terms of health care and so on and so forth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should provide those pre-primary institutions with basic needs for looking after kids like nappies, fresh water, milk and so on. In fact, we also need to provide, in those pre-primary units, resting facilities! There are some kids who cannot sustain sitting in a class for up to three or four hours. The schools should, therefore, be equipped with some nursery somewhere where, a child who is incapable of going for three or four hours can rest. You do not expect parents to come and pick up the kids from school at will! They go to school, maybe, at seven o'clock, and go back at mid-day. In between, they should have an opportunity to August 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3341 have a rest. Those are very, very little kids that have not developed the capacity to sustain a rigorous learning exercise for three or four hours! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, that is the only way we can give a proper foundation to our children. That is the only way we can give full meaning to free primary education. Research has shown that children who have missed that critical ECD program are incapable of effectively competing with those who have gone through the whole system of ECD and Standard I. As it already is, you will find that schools in urban centres; private schools where all these hon. Members send their children, have got facilities that make it impossible to compete with schools in rural areas. The problem is magnified by the lack of ECD availability in those areas. It is only that way that we will give full meaning to the only Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that we have achieved - universal primary education - by giving a proper foundation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we, as hon. Members, have in many cases, provided funds for construction of classrooms to accommodate ECD! All we need to do now is to agree with the Government to partner so that, where we build classrooms, the Government should provide teachers. I know there is a problem of funding and recruitment of enough teachers even for the existing schools. But we must try to give a foundation to those children. Secondly, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think it is also desirable to re-look into the operations of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) kitty. That is because, you know, the CDF Act does not allow us to use the fund for recurrent expenditure. For example, we are not allowed to pay salaries, recruit teachers and so on. But for purposes of effecting the development of children, I think we need to re-look at that Act and see whether the CDF can, in some way, be used to recruit teachers who are properly trained, so that they can run those nursery schools to enable our children get a proper foundation. This will go a long way in helping develop our education system. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, once again, I want to congratulate Mr. Angwenyi for such a far-sighted Motion and I fully support the spirit and the letter of the Motion. Thank you."
}