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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kones",
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"legal_name": "Kipkalya Kones ( Deceased)",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to support this very important Motion. But I have a few problems with the proposed Education Levy Fund and the terms \"poor and disadvantaged backgrounds.\" I think education in this country cannot be overemphasized, in the sense that it has not been given very serious thought in terms of liberalising its standards. You will find that certain institutions provide very good secondary school education, while some provide almost nothing. I quite agree with my colleague who has just talked about the day schools. I think Kenyans should go the day-schools route. But you will find that most of the day schools in this country are actually, almost, running empty in terms of the number of students. Students are not there because of a shortage of teachers in those schools. I think the Government has to decide whether it wants to run day schools as public institutions or otherwise. For example, you will be lucky to find two or three teachers posted by Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in a day school with two streams from Form One to Form Four. This discourages students from going to those schools. If these schools were properly equipped with laboratories and staffed with teachers, we would reduce the cost of education in our country. But you will find that there is a lot of emphasis given to the old schools and boarding schools, which most parents cannot afford. I think we must make a decision in this country and say that unless it is absolutely necessary, we actually do not require boarding schools. What is the point of taking a child to a boarding school when his or her home is only about one kilometre away from school? That child is not even allowed to go back 2908 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 1, 2007 home when the school is in session. It used to make sense to take children to boarding schools because those schools were very far from the villages they came from. But it does not make sense nowadays given that, almost, every primary school is next to a secondary school. The Government should come out and say that it supports free secondary education. Then, the parents will bear the burden of having to cook and house the children in the evenings. They will also provide education facilities to those children in the evening. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know of any parent who has comfortably said that he or she affords secondary school education for his or her children. This is because at any one given time, a parent could be having four or five children in secondary schools. If every child is charged Kshs25,000 per year, for example, if you multiply that by five, it amounts to over Kshs100,000 per year. There are hardly any parents in this country, today, who are earning that kind of money. So, almost, every family has a burden. That is the reason you will find that most schools are holding the certificates of school leavers. They are not doing it for fun, but because the school fees have not been paid. If we are talking of about 20,000 students who have not gotten their secondary school certificates in a constituency, it is, almost, the same as saying that every child who has gone through secondary school education has not been able to meet the school fees. Therefore, there is a problem. We must address this issue as a national problem. So, the issue is not whether the students come from poor and disadvantaged families or not. I think almost every family, today, cannot comfortably afford secondary school education and, therefore, it is a burden. Just as primary school education was a burden, so is secondary school education. But we seem to be shying away from urging the Government to provide free secondary school education. We would then ask ourselves: How do we afford it? We would move on and abolish all the unnecessary boarding secondary schools and make them day schools. Students would go back home in the evenings. We would then provide those day schools with quality education. We would give them laboratories and staff them with good teachers. It does not make a lot of sense to spend so much money to build boarding schools when, in fact, we could spend that same amount of money to build teachers' quarters. The other reason most day schools do not have enough teachers is because they cannot be housed in those schools. No teacher would want to teach in a school where he cannot be housed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think we are having our priorities totally upside down. If we could have adequate teachers' facilities, then teachers would go to teach in the rural areas. That is not asking too much. The Government should go out there and instead of talking about the Education Levy Fund, provide free secondary education to all the children. These days, children finish Standard Eight when they are so young that they cannot do anything worthwhile. They cannot do anything with their lives. They cannot effectively and sensibly engage in business. They cannot even sensibly engage in marriage, like my friend was talking about. Standard Eight children are so young that I cannot imagine them even getting married. Even if they get married, they cannot competently look after their families. We should make it compulsory for children to be in school until they are over 18 years old. It should be a policy of the Government to keep children in school up to Form Four. Secondary school education should be affordable. Every primary school should extend and have another four classrooms from Form One to Form Four. This is not asking too much. If this was done, we would be looking at the society in a better way. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, currently, we are doing this in piece meal and this is not going to help us. If we want to provide free secondary education in this country, we should give it priority and make it affordable. Every primary school should have a day secondary school, and every day secondary school should be equipped properly. The schools should have enough teachers and laboratory equipment. The teachers should be housed in the schools, so that they do not run August 1, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2909 away from the schools because of lack of accommodation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support this Motion. However, the Mover of the Motion should probably make some amendments, so that it becomes easy for the House to pass the Motion and the Government can see that there are good intentions in this Motion. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}