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"id": 213790,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. M. Kilonzo",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Vote. I want to associate myself with those hon. Members who have praised the Minister. He is an outstanding man. I have had the opportunity to work for and with him when he was the Vice-President and the Minister for Finance. I think he has brought his experience to bear on this Ministry. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, to a large extent, I think he has been too successful. I think so, because right now, in this country in order for one to be admitted to any of our public universities, he must have scored \"A\"-minus grade and above in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). I think that is over-success. I would like to invite the Minister and the Government to follow up on the very important aspect of education to create a proper environment for investment in private universities. This country is spending huge amounts of money sending students to foreign universities, including Uganda. At the last count, there were more than 6,000 students in Uganda alone. I am told that a careful inspection of the United States education system, Kenya is the second largest ranking country in terms of population contribution to that country. It is fair that those of us who are involved in this very important area of our country to remember that the students we send overseas are not going there for free. We are spending large sums of money which if properly invested would be able to produce sufficient universities for this country. I say so, because I find it very strange, and I am sure the Minister will tell us, why there is no university east of Thika Town and south east of the City of Nairobi. It is not fair that the communities that are living in the greater part of the eastern part of the country all the way to the coastline do not have universities. I was gratified to hear His Excellency the President saying that with foreign aid the country will establish the first university in Coast Province. That is not enough, bearing in mind the amount of money the country is spending overseas, we can fund these universities ourselves. We should not leave it to foreign donors, grants and the rest, because they all come with strings attached. I want to remind the hon. Minister because he is a professor of Mathematics that under the arithmetic that I have heard of, and I cannot remember who said this, that if you want to invest for one year, you plant maize. If you want to invest for ten years, you plant trees, but if you really want to invest for 100 years, then you invest in people. I think the time has come for this country to seriously take the issue of education as a critical contributor to the actual elimination of poverty. I personally believe that the day this country will have a wage earner in every home or household, even problems like we are having with Mungiki will disappear. People will no longer need to go and wait at matatu bus stops to collect commissions from matatu owners because they will buy their own matatus . Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one of the most critical areas where I think again the hon. Minister has been over-successful is on free primary education programme. I think as soon as he established this programme, he thought the game was over, but it is not. First of all, the population continues growing and yet we have, in fact - and I stand to be corrected when he responds, not built a single primary school though public funds in the last four years. In the old July 17, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2555 days, we used to do this using Harambees even in the Minister's constituency. Right now, that has come to a standstill because of the Government's discouragement of Harambee projects. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the time to invest in more primary schools and teachers has come. I also want to salute the fact that the Government has now advertised the recruitment of 11,000 teachers. We need to be satisfied that the recruitment will be done in a proper manner and not in a slanted manner, so that those teachers will not only be recruited from areas where the Government enjoys support, but all over because this is a public resource. We want this recruitment of teachers done properly and in a transparent manner and above board. In fact, if I were the Government, I do dare to comment that, that recruitment be focused and spread out through the 210 constituencies. We want to give each constituency an opportunity for employment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is ridiculous for parents to educate children all the way to Form Four and then they cannot use the benefit of that education because the school leaving certificates and result slips are tied up to this phenomenal problems of so called outstanding balances in school fees. I believe the hon. Minister and the Government knows that, in fact, examinations are not conducted by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) and the owners of those certificates are not the schools. Therefore, the schools have no right or power to withhold the issuance of certificates to students. This is because, in the end, the education that we are giving to our children, becomes dead capital. They cannot engage in employment, get jobs and pursue further investment. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to suggest, with humility, that the time for this country to invest in e-learning has come. I hope the Minister and the Government will table in this House during this Session a Sessional Paper as to how this country can start contemplating the future. This is because the future is in e-learning where teachers and students are using computers. Now that the Government, in an election year, is dropping electricity poles in every constituency for purposes of getting those votes, the time to accumulate this and see its actual effect is now. We want to encourage our professionals in information and computer technology to develop proper programmes for e-learning in schools. In fact, I believe and I say so, again very humbly, that we can even start with pilot schools; one per constituency where teaching is done through e-learning. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other thing that I would like to suggest and I concur with my friend who has just spoken, Mr. Achuka, is on marginal areas. I think there is got to be waiting investment in education for those areas, through no fault of their own, but by nature and by the act God. They are not capable of producing the same quantity of incomes in order to invest in education. I am talking of the pastoral areas and areas like the eastern part of the country where because, again of climatic conditions, the Government has not seen it fit to give us dams to irrigate our land. I believe students from those poor communities should access quality education in a fitting way. When I mention Eastern Province, I am not excluding other areas like Nyanza and Kisii, because the land size has diminished so much so that as much as you are a hard working farmer, you really cannot produce sufficient income to sustain the education of our children. It is again important, and I say this because it is a fact on the ground, that the teacher-pupil ratio in our schools right from secondary schools all the way down to primary schools is such that although we say we have quality Free Primary Education (FPE) Programme, and I salute it, the fact of the matter is that teachers are overwhelmed. Above all, we know that there are already complaints coming from parents that when the money is disbursed to primary schools, it is abused. There is an element of corruption creeping in the application of the monies intended for the construction of toilets and for the purchase of stationery and so on. That suggests that a Sessional Paper on Education is long overdue during this Session. We should know for sure and for certain that the statement that His Excellency the President has been expressing that he will offer free secondary education at least in tuition, is a reality and not just a political gimmick. We would like to see this in black and white; in writing. It ought to be tabled in this House so that we can debate 2556 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 17, 2007 it. This will also ensure that the enormous trade that the Government is entitled to within certain parameters on education can be merited. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to say that the time to establish a special technical university for this country has come. I am satisfied that as much as I want to praise the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), I think the time to select our top cream of students across the country on sciences, mathematics and the rest has come. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}