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"speaker_name": "Prof. Oniang'o",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this chance to support the Vote of the Ministry of Education. I would like to congratulate the Minister and his team for truly taking on very well this challenging Ministry. As we talk about education, I would like to say that anybody who does not complain about education is not a Kenyan. We all complain about education. We do so because we believe that it can be made better. We want it to be better. So, the Minister should take up the complaints in that context. I will start my contribution with the issue of university education. Whereas we are able to monitor what is going on in the primary and secondary levels, there is not much we do at the university level. I just had lunch with a student from one of our public universities, where parallel degree programmes go on and where there is discrimination. The discrimination is against regular students in favour of students taking the parallel degree programmes. I would like to urge the Minister to carry out an inspection and set up some guidelines on how we can maintain quality, equatability and fair play in our public universities. Even as Members of the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology, we have visited some of the engineering laboratories in our public universities. It is amazing to know that some of the departments which take some of our best brains have nothing to offer our students. They use archaic equipment and that is really deplorable. We would like to see some funds allocated to our public universities, which train most of the very brilliant Kenyans so that we can continue to compete internationally. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to touch on the Free Primary Education (FPE) Programme. We laud it because it got many children to go to school. But as we speak, there are schools which have 200 students squeezed in one classroom with one teacher. Even as we embark to recruit 11,000 teachers out of the required 55,000, we are not going to solve the problem in the near future. Something else one sees as you go into the classrooms is a 60 year old person in the same classroom with pupils who are 10 years old. Surely, that is not acceptable. I hope that the Minister will address this issue. We have to harmonise, look at the age structure and make sure that we do not have adults and children in the same class. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, something else concerning the FPE Programme is that we are not sure if it is compulsory or not. We are aware that there are many children who stay at home. We are aware that there are teachers who send away students for lack of school uniforms. So, we want to know if it is compulsory or not. If the FPE Programme is for all, then the Minister has to make sure that all children go to school. Something else which I want to touch on, and which is very close to my heart, is the issue of school nutrition and sanitation. We are aware that we have young girls who look like grown up women because they reach puberty when they are still in primary schools. I am not sure that, that is well taken care of and that it is given the sensitivity it requires in primary schools. We are also aware that the school feeding programme retains children in schools. I know that the Minister is already thinking about introducing school feeding programmes in primary schools. This will go a long way in enhancing the FPE Programme and at the same time ensure that children stay in school when they are alert and enjoy their stay. Something else which I want to touch on, while I still have the time, is about the children who are talented. These are children who are not served by our educational and examination systems. Such children may be artists, singers and so on. They may have all kinds of talents, but may score \"Ds\" or \"Es\" and fail. We need to look at our examination system and make sure that it identifies talents in our children. It is those talents that will built this country. That way, we can then start talking about equitable access to opportunities that are available. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the last issue I want to touch on is e-learning. This has to do with the use of computers. We have not been having computers in schools. Right now, we July 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2623 have computers in certain schools and not in others. We are, actually, going to discriminate against students, based on technological advancement. We have students sitting for the same examinations. I would like to urge the Minister to make sure that all schools have access to computers and that children have equal opportunities in terms of aspects and performance. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}