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"id": 218237,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/218237/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I am sure that Mr. Wamwere, being a great advocate of marginalised communities and squatters, has vested interest in this Motion. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was just saying that to be able to address the problem, we have to be able to appreciate the historical root of that problem - historical roots which have also been compounded by economic advantage in areas which were the first to benefit from missionary education also reinforced this advantage because of other benefits, including economic and political ones. It is true that affirmative action is necessary. As a Government, we have done exactly that, in terms of both how resources are being allocated and in terms of specific programmes like bursary and so on. However, as we have said before, affirmative action on its own is not enough. We do not want to be talking about affirmative action forever. Affirmative action must be done simultaneously with other initiatives, so that 20 years from now we no longer have to address those kinds of issues. Therefore, even as we say we need to have more schools in those areas, we need more bursary programmes, we need to have a quota system in admitting students from those areas to universities, we must invest very seriously in other levels of education, all the way from pre-school to primary and secondary levels to ensure that we have enough institutions of quality that will be able to produce students from those communities, who can compete with students from any other part of this country ten years from now. If we do not do that, then we will be singing this song forever. June 13, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1755 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue which we also have to address, which some hon. Members have already alluded to, is the reason as to why north eastern Kenya and other areas like parts of Coast Province and Rift Valley Province are so disadvantaged in the area of education. It is because those areas are also under-developed. Therefore, we need to go to the very bottom of the problem. If the problem is overall under-development, then we must develop those areas, so that they can also be able to support the education system. As I said, even areas of central Kenya, Nairobi and others, the reason as to why they have a strong education system, and why they have very good schools, is because they are already economically advantaged. So, we need to think about provision of water for irrigation, supporting all programmes of economic development, other infrastructure that is relevant, electricity, roads, telephone systems, et cetera . More importantly, we also need to think about systems of governance to get the people themselves to ask more questions of their leaders, and ensure that they elect the right national leaders as well. If we have the wrong leadership in any part of this country, it is also going to reflect on the kind of development that we are going to experience in those areas. Therefore, this is another area we have to invest in, in terms of getting people to vote for a leadership that will make a difference, be it at the presidential level, the parliamentary level or the local authority level. If that does not happen, again very little will happen in those particular communities to support the long-term development that we think is necessary to support education, among other sectors. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, again, talking beyond education, about factors which have something to do with education but which are not necessarily educational, we also need to ask questions about traditional and other cultural values that impede educational development in those areas. It is not enough to just say: Those areas are under-developed. The Government is not doing enough, et cetera . It is also important to ask: What is it about, we, as communities, that we believe in that does not support educational development? So, until we are honest enough to also address those kinds of obstacles to education, we will not get anywhere, because it is not just an issue of providing infrastructure. You might provide the infrastructure and find that there is no commitment on the part of a community, because people have other values, and that there are other obstacles that arise from the way people think as well as from certain religious and traditional beliefs, etcetera . Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Motion is also asking us to support infrastructural development. As we all know, that is already happening. There are a number of programmes that the Government has specifically designed for the marginalised communities. There are programmes we are undertaking in partnership with donors, namely, OPEC, UNICEF, USAID, which are specifically targetted at those communities. Beyond the partners, the Government has provided additional resources to those communities through the grants for ASAL areas and provision of more money for science laboratories. We are providing money, targeting those communities. So, if you look at the overall education budget, in terms of allocation to regions, the so- called marginalised communities are getting a disproportionate share of the resources that are available because of the Government's commitment to address those imbalances. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the situation is much better than before. Even those who advocate for this improvement can appreciate that this particular Government has paid much more attention to disadvantaged communities than was the case previously. That needs to be appreciated. The important thing, however, is to see how we can benefit from that kind of support to ensure that those resources that are specifically targeted to those communities, bear results. Even as we put resources into those communities as Government, donors and Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs), there is a point at which we must be careful with regard to the co-ordination of all those groups that are going to those areas. One of the biggest problems which make us not to see much difference in terms of impact, is because there is a lot of 1756 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 13, 2007 duplication of roles. Donors and NGOs are giving computers to the same schools. They are starting pre-school programmes in the same areas. They are building classrooms and dormitories in the same schools that have already benefited. There is need for co-ordinating those efforts, so that whatever the Government, the donors and the NGOs are giving, and whatever is coming from the CDF and the local authorities is co-ordinated to ensure that whatever is available has the greatest impact. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, right now, that is the biggest problem. Everybody goes to North Eastern Province or parts of Coast or the Rift Valley provinces because these areas are disadvantaged. But there is no co-ordination. Lack of co-ordination has led to less impact than could have been the case if we did better co-ordination. It is not enough to just pour resources in communities and areas that are disadvantaged. It is high time we insisted on accountability. If we put more money in north eastern Kenya, parts of the north rift and Coast Province, we have the responsibility as the Government, the CDF officials and the donors, to ask questions about whether or not results are better since we started putting money in there. If results are not getting any better, then we should ask questions about whether or not it is necessary to continue pouring resources in what, in some cases, appears to be a bottomless pit, where you see no results. So, as we put resources in those communities, it is important to also ask for accountability, so that people are forced to provide results because resources are better put elsewhere if we do not see any difference. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with regard to infrastructural development and affirmative action, I again would like to reiterate that it must never be forever. We must do these things with targets in mind and say that if we do not see improvement by a certain time, then we have to also look at other areas that have even bigger problems than the so-called marginalised communities in the country. The challenge is huge, of course, and this will require us to figure out more ways of partnering with other supporters. The partnerships should go beyond donors and NGOs. They should go beyond what money is available through LATF, the CDF, from the business community and many of the religious groups that are strong in those areas, especially because now with this policy of schools saying that they are the sponsors and, therefore, they must control certain things, we also want to get those religious groups to invest much more in education, so that they can justify their claim to sponsoring institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the point I am making here is that, this is not a problem that the Government can resolve. It is too huge. We must find ways of mobilising additional resources from these other sectors and to ensure that those resources, including bursary money, are put to better use and it is allocated in a more transparent mechanism. This requires even us, as hon. Members, to ask questions about whether or not the resources that are available are allocated and used in the most efficient and transparent manner. There are many complaints also about how we allocate bursary money and the CDF money. If we are more transparent and beyond reproach, we are likely to get the money that is available to get further than is currently the case. Many of the small problems that we are talking about would already be resolved by just ensuring that even the resources that we have as hon. Members are used transparently and efficiently. It is true that the centres of excellence can help. We should have good schools in those communities. I have been an advocate of the fact that any new national schools should be built in areas that do not have national schools. We must have a policy whereby a child from Nairobi, central Kenya or Nyanza Province can go to any national school, so that you do not force the system to admit you to Alliance High School or Mangu High School. That is the only way of popularising schools in those communities. You may have good schools with all the facilities like Garbatulla High School in northern Kenya, which was a national school, but there were no students from other parts of the country wanting to go there and people found a way of going around that. If Kenyans are made to realise that if you are admitted to a national school you can join any June 13, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1757 national school in this country, this will be one way of strengthening national schools outside Kiambu, Nakuru and other places where we have national schools. If it is not compulsory, then they will not be credible and they will not be as strong as we would like them to be. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on universities, I agree that we need to have universities not just in Eastern, Coast and North Eastern provinces, but everywhere in this country. This is the only way of solving the problem of transition that is so limited from secondary school to university. The only way of getting more Kenyans to benefit from university education is not just to have one university in every province. It is ideally, in the long-run, to have a university in every district. This is because the closer universities are to the people, the easier it is for more people to enrol in those universities even as day scholars. Right now, all those Kenyans who would like to join university have to go to the big towns of this country, for example, Kisumu, Nairobi and Mombasa, and where there are constituent colleges. We need to go beyond that to make it clear that universities are not just about towns and they can be rural institutions. They would be rural institutions because the target would be to reach as many Kenyans as possible. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said that, I would like to make the point we made before that already, there is a major effort by the Government. This year, we announced that we are opening several constituent colleges in this country. We are opening Kilifi in Coast Province, Kisii in Nyanza Province, Chuka and Kitui in Eastern Province, as well as campuses in other parts of this country as a way of beginning to address the problem, while we know that we have to do much more in the long-run. The idea of having a university in Coast Province is very attractive and already, this is under-way. There was an announcement recently about an organisation from the Middle East that is going to put up an institution in Coast Province. Beyond that, we are also strengthening Mombasa Polytechnic. I have also spoken about Kilifi as a constituent college of one of our universities. It is attractive in that, it will be easy for us to even attract professors who would come to teach on voluntary basis because of the attractive climate of Mombasa. It is also attractive in that, we can start programmes that are unique, that have not been started in other universities including marine science and so on. We can start programmes that revolve around tourism. So, there are many benefits in having a university at the Coast Province apart from the fact that we need to redistribute these institutions across the country. There is also a major advantage in having a university in North Eastern Province, especially aware of the fact that university institutions in the neighbouring countries of the north, namely, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia are very under-developed. We would have a situation whereby, we would not only have students from North Eastern Province joining this university, but we would also have students from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and other countries of the north finding it easier to benefit from good Kenyan education without having to travel to Nairobi and other parts of the country that are much further away. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, eventually, we will be attracting other resources. We have been complaining about Kenyan students going to Uganda. We also have an opportunity to build institutions in this country to attract Somalis, Ethiopians, Sudanese, Congolese, Rwandese and even Ugandans to come to this country. So, investment in university education is a benefit in terms of earning foreign currency and creating a business environment for our people. We can be the best centre of university education in this region. Just like India has become attractive for many countries of Asia, Kenya can be a major attraction to North, East and Central Africa. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to conclude by saying that affirmative action is necessary. We must do it even more radically than is the case currently. But as I said, it must be simultaneous with other initiatives. We should not just talk about affirmative action with regard to lowering the entry points for general admission to universities. We can make that specific to certain areas. If you come from Kapenguria and you have attained \"B\", you can qualify to go and study medicine just like a student with an \"A\" from Mangu High School. That is because a score of 1758 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 13, 2007 \"B\" from a small school in Kapenguria is equivalent to \"A\" from Mangu High School. Unless we make those grades specific to professional degree programmes, we will be doing nothing. You can lower the cut-off points to a university, but most of those students will have grades that cannot get them professional degree courses. So, we must be specific as to what kind of grade you will need for every degree programme, depending on what type of school you went and which part of the country you come from. That is the only way we could make a difference. Finally, the disadvantage position of North Eastern Province, parts of Coast Province and Rift Valley have a great deal to do with bad leadership. There is no doubt that those areas historically supported Government systems that never invested anything in those communities."
}