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"content": "Thank you very much, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this Motion by Mr. Karaba. I want to congratulate Mr. Karaba for moving this Motion. This is a Motion that most of us are very concerned about. Many of the issues that we are talking about came up when we were even contributing towards the Vote of the Ministry for Education. These are issues that have been mentioned many times in the course of this Parliament. We have emphasised in the past that the most important thing that any Government would want to do is to invest in education. The amount of money that we spend on our education is what will make a difference both for the present and the future. If we do not invest in education, in many ways, much else that we invest in will not make sense. This is because it is very important that you have an educated citizenry; people who can read, write, understand the policy of their Government and, therefore, can support their Government. People who can read instructions to guide themselves in whatever they are doing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you cannot develop if you largely have an illiterate citizenry. As I have said before, this is the difference that came between us in Africa and South East Asia. The South East Asian countries, which we quote often in our debate, are countries that were also colonised by the same European powers. So, they went through the same kind of exploitation, humiliation and misdirection as we did. Somehow, the South East Asian countries have been able to move forward. Some of them have become major economic powers. The difference has been that they identified education as a priority. One example of these countries is India. India invested in education heavily. Today, India has been able to propel itself to the realm of becoming almost a superpower, altogether having a large population that is now middle class and is literally moving their economy. This is a country that has even ventured into nuclear power and sent satellites to outer space. Today, India is one of the countries that is providing employment to many developed countries including America because they have so many skills. This is being done as those countries take advantage of the technology that has made it possible for people to work for America while they are still in India. That would not have happened if India had not invested heavily in eduction, especially in science and technology. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today sourced employment is a big election issue in America. They are saying that many of their people are not getting jobs because they are going to India and other Asian countries that are sourcing services by using science and technology. As Africans, we have really missed the boat. It is very very important that we wake up and provide our children with education. As other hon. Members have said, this Motion should be taken very seriously. It should ensure that we give our children free secondary education. We have managed to implement free primary eduction; we should do the same for secondary education. If we cannot give secondary school students free education, we can give them loans so that when they go to work, we will recover this money from them just as we are doing with university graduands. Instead of holding their certificates when they finish high school, we allow them to look for jobs and they start refunding this money the minute they find a job or become self-employed. This will ensure that this money is recycled. When we do not invest in education we are being very short-sighted. This country has money. Right now we are discussing how we can improve our 2910 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 1, 2007 emoluments here in Parliament. We are already very highly paid. Recently the salaries of some of our civil servants were raised to very high levels. If we can do that, surely we can invest in education. We are sacrificing our children. When we have children who do not enter secondary school, those who do not complete secondary schools or do not get their certificates and cannot be employed, it is no wonder that we have insecurity in this country. We are told that Kenya is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Whenever you have a country where there is so much inequality so that you have few people who are extremely rich and a large number who are extremely poor, that country can never have security. It is not surprising that we as the elite and the rulers of this country have resulted to killing our own children because they have become a source of insecurity for us. We must invest in education. If those children had been given education, been able to acquire skills so that they could be engaged in gainful employment they would not be engaging in such self-destructive such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse and getting into organised crime. People who have been dealing with this crime such as the United States of America, Brazil will tell you that this is partly due to the inbuilt inequalities in their societies that allow certain sections of their societies not to be educated or receive adequate skills to become responsible and contributing members of the society. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Motion is extremely important and I know we can do what it is advocating for. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), as it is at the moment, is--- At least, in my own constituency, I know that if I did everything my constituents ask me of, I could spend 100 per cent of my CDF on improving the infrastructure in schools and paying school fees but I am not able to. First of all, we have the rule of 50 per cent. So many schools are dilapidated and you sometimes find children learning in very deplorable situations. As I mentioned another time here, one of the things that have horrified me is the status of the infrastructure, especially simple things like latrines. You just find that children do not have adequate latrines, and when you ask people to build them, they tell you that the CDF should do it. It really shows that we have given very little attention, as the Government, parents and teachers, to the welfare of children in our schools. I want to agree with Mr. Githae here that, in fact, it is possible to cut down the amounts of money parents are being asked to pay if teachers do not put unnecessary costs to education. Maybe, the answer is to have more day schools, but, certainly, teachers should be encouraged to reduce the amount of unnecessary burdens that they put on parents. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, because of HIV/AIDS, and partly also because of poverty which, despite the growth in our economy, is not being felt in the rural areas that much, we still have many children who are orphans because of HIV/AIDS. In my constituency, when I give scholarships to orphans who are recommended by the community, I have no more money to give to students who are not orphans, but are extremely needy. So, I find that no matter what we do, until our economy improves to higher levels, it is virtually impossible to give our children education. The Government has to provide free secondary education. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}