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"speaker_name": "Mr. Biwott",
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"legal_name": "Nicholas Kiprono Kipyator Biwott",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I will be very quick. This is a Ministry that is very well run and it is run by two professors who have proven to be excellent. They are supported by directors who are accomplished. They have a strategic plan, which is very clear and efficient. However, structurally, there is still a problem. One of the problem is that of equalisation. This entails making sure that the areas which are left behind are brought into line with those who have advanced. If you look at teacher training colleges, they use computers and they train students from those areas which have already benefitted. They have also already trained many other students to become teachers and they are now teaching in their own areas. So, there will be areas which will be perpetually condemned to receiving teachers from somewhere else and so nothing will move. With regard to admissions to secondary schools, the quota system which used to exist in the admission of students to secondary schools is gradually being eroded. Again, that will bring disparity in education. If such a thing is not arrested, it will, again, marginalise other areas. Otherwise, I would like to congratulate the President and the Ministry for supporting the Free Primary Education (FPE). However, we would like it to be full and not partial. The Government should not only waive the tuition fees. The support should be 100 per cent so that the age of the children, and especially the girl children, is extended to, at least, 16 years or 17 years. That way, when they come out, they will not be vulnerable as they are at the moment. They leave school at Standard Eight when they are still at the tender age of 13 years or 14 years. That is a very good 2632 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 18, 2007 thing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other point which was mentioned by Prof. Anyang'-Nyong'o is the technical education. If you look at the kind of population which builds the country, it is the blue collar one. It is the technical training that is critical in the development of a country. Today, we have contractors from India and other countries because we do not have technicians. We abandoned what was built during the colonial days, that is, the training institutions like Kabete Technical Training Institute and others, where students were diverted, if they were not good academically. Today, we are pursuing academic education par excellence and yet those ones are white-collar job-seekers, who are still found in this country today looking for jobs. There are those with degrees up to the Masters level, but they still cannot get jobs. So, there is a mismatch. If you train somebody, you raise the expectations, and if you cannot fulfil those expectations by getting jobs, you then create disgruntled elements. Therefore, I would suggest that wherever the teacher training colleges are located, they should take into account, first of all, students from those areas and the other areas which have not benefited. Secondly, if we must have free education, as a policy, then we must have the other side of the coin, that is, to provide enough teachers to fulfil that function. You should also create facilities so as to provide a fully integrated programme. There is no point of putting in place half measures where you have Free Primary Education (FPE) and idle classes or an inefficient way of fulfilling the obligation of teaching. The other point I would like to stress is that the teachers who are currently being employed are very few. In fact, in my own district, Keiyo, we are short of about 300 teachers. So, we will not be able to fulfil the FPE unless we have those teachers. If you look at the students who are admitted at Tambach High School, they are barely seven out of a large number. So, it means that there is a problem. If you rely on sending these students elsewhere, you will come across another problem which is caused by poverty. This is because many students who are admitted to secondary schools elsewhere cannot travel. This is simply because they do not have the resources and their places will be taken by others. The problem is a vicious cycle and so it continues. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to congratulate the Minister and his staff for ensuring that education days are conducted in the districts to address the issue of quality of education and also provide an opportunity for those areas to raise whatever issues that they have. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support."
}