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"id": 213385,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/213385/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o",
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"speaker": {
"id": 193,
"legal_name": "Peter Anyang' Nyong'o",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Education is a very important Ministry. It has been properly lauded for the initiative of providing basic primary education. It should also be lauded for adopting the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Kenya policy of providing free secondary school education. They have not \"footnetised\"(?) it since we pronounced it. But I commend them for seeing the light and doing what the people of Kenya really need. There is an important issue that I would like to bring to the attention of the Ministry; that is the issue of early childhood development, or what is normally called \"nursery school education\". A long time ago, when the Ministry of Education was working, just after colonialism, and many institutions which were run by local authorities were then working, early childhood education was the responsibility of local authorities! Indeed, it worked! But after the mushrooming of Harambee schools after Independence, and the multiplication of school facilities by various private sector entrepreneurs, early childhood education, as an important aspect of the Ministry of Education, somehow disappeared. Local authorities, although positing themselves as being competent to run early childhood education, failed miserably. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as we speak today, early childhood education, or nursery school education, is somehow in limbo. One is not sure whether it is the responsibility of local authorities or it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Where it exists, it usually comes under the initiative of sponsors of schools like the churches, the Anglican or Catholic church, boards of governors or parents-teachers associations (PTAs) of various schools. If, indeed, we are going to provide free primary school and free secondary school education - let us not call it free but compulsory - then we must, indeed, pay attention to early childhood education. It is the foundation of education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I, myself, enjoyed the benefits of early childhood education provided by the Anglican Church. I think it is very useful at that point in time, because it gives you the foundation of education. I think that if, indeed, the Ministry of Education is going to propel Kenya into the 21st Century, as a First World economy, we cannot avoid budgeting for early childhood education, as a compulsory step towards primary schooling. You know that in the private schools, they do not accept children into Standard One unless they can demonstrate having graduated from early childhood educational institutions. This, I think, is a good point to the Ministry of Education, the importance of early childhood education. Secondly, I am glad that the Ministry of Education has announced - I have heard my friend, the Assistant Minister for Education speaking about this very vehemently - that we should down- grade or disengage from boarding schools, and try and concentrate our investments on day schools. This is a good development! We could leave boarding schools for national and provincial schools, and make sure that they admit students equitably across the Republic. But because of the number of 2626 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 18, 2007 schools coming up, and the cost effectiveness of day schooling, provided we have adequate facilities in schools, and provided schools are within reach of children walking from their homes to the school, and provided there are school-feeding programmes that can make sure that when children go to school they are fed, I think the trend for the future should be for day schooling. Having understood that the trend for the future is for day schooling, then, I think, the distinction between primary school and secondary school should also disappear. It is counter-productive to invest in students to go up to Standard Seven or Eight and then when they go to Form I, 60 per cent of them fall out; especially when we say that we are also going to provide compulsory education at the secondary level. Primary and secondary schooling should be synchronised into one and, like happens in private schools like Rusinga and others, once a child goes to Standard One, it should be guaranteed that this child will go up to Form IV. This will ensure that there is no distinction, whatsoever, between a primary and a secondary school. What we should do is to say we have elementary or basic schooling or, like was said in colonial days, sector schooling. Whatever language we use, primary schools and secondary schools should be synchronised into one. Children should be able to go from Standard One to Form IV and complete the basic schooling in one institution. The time when we competed for a few secondary school places when we were in Standard Eight and we had only Maseno, Kakamega, Kamusinga and Alliance schools, and people travelled long distances to go to secondary schools and it was known all over that the child of so-and-so has gone to a secondary school, is long gone. Now, in my village we have four primary schools and two secondary schools. The other two primary schools, which are not secondary schools, should be made into secondary schools. Basic education should be for everybody, and maneno kwisha ! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this is what I would like to appeal to the Ministry of Education, that in this trend for the future, let us finish the distinction between primary schools and secondary schools, and have one system of basic schooling from Standard One to Form IV, so that, that foundational schooling is given to everybody from nursery, or early childhood education, to Form IV. Having said that, I want to go to the sad issue in the Ministry of Education which, unfortunately, is now divided between the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and I do not know what else. It is the issue of polytechnics and tertiary education. I do not understand why polytechnics should be under the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and the Ministry that takes care of culture, sports, women, and I do not know what else is there. Polytechnics are an educational issue. Technical training is an educational issue."
}