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"id": 219876,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/219876/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Shaban",
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"speaker": {
"id": 139,
"legal_name": "Naomi Namsi Shaban",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, out of the 260,000 students who sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations (KCSE) last year, only 63,000 got C plus and above. Out of this 63,000, only 3.8 per cent would most likely gain entrance to university. In other words, about 50,000 will be left out. Even when you look at the figure of 3.8 per cent of the 63,000, most likely very few of those students will join universities. There are many reasons why the universities do not have the capacity to accommodate all the 60,000 students. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the mean grade of C plus to A runs as follows: C plus is 46 points to 52 points; B minus is 53 points to 59 points; B plain is 60 points to 66 points; B plus is 70 points to 73 points; A minus is 74 points to 80 points; A is from 81 points and above. However, when the 8-4-4 system of education started, the university was able to admit the first lot of C plus. In fact, they were very strong C pluses. Even most of the C pluses were left out because of lack of cluster points. It is only for the first one year when we saw those students admitted May 23, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1551 together with the last Form Six lot. After that, of course, along the way the C plus was left out completely after one academic year. The following year they jumped up to B minus and it has been an upward trend. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the dropout rate from secondary school has been annually about 5 per cent and for primary schools it has been 3 per cent. However, when we look at that 5 per cent and 3 per cent respectively, we see more dropouts from the disadvantaged background or the marginalised areas, especially the real Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL). Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, emphasis has been put so much on the girl-child that in the process we have promoted the girl-child, so much and we have sort of forgotten about the boy-child. Right now, the boy-child is becoming slowly an endangered species. We, as a country, need to do something about both the boy-child and the girl-child. We must make sure that these children stay in school and then join tertiary colleges and universities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the number of teachers in primary schools in the year 2006 was 162,993. In secondary schools, was 42,403 which is a far cry from what is really required on the teaching staff and the needs of the schools. We have a shortage of about 46,000 in primary schools and 12,000 in secondary schools. This is bound to continue because we are registering more schools which have been built through the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) facility. The Government must do something about the shortfall. I know there has been talk about the increment of the number of teachers in primary and secondary schools level. Most of the schools in the rural areas do not have enough teachers. We find that most of the teachers have been moving to where their spouses are. Schools in the rural areas are left without enough teaching staff and their replacement becomes a problem. I think the policy of the Government had been to put husband and wife together. In the process, there has been that big migration and loss to the rural areas. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, something must be done in the marginalised areas. Not only about the schools because most of them are built using CDF funds, but I believe the Government and the private partners must work together to put up many secondary schools in marginalised and very remote areas in this country. These children need to go to schools so that they qualify to join tertiary colleges and universities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, of course, there are other issues which are affecting these marginal areas. Even children who are qualified to go to universities or colleges to pursue diploma courses, the main factor which affects them is lack of fees. The fees have been prohibitive. These children have been left out and they feel quite harassed, unhappy and frustrated. After working so hard and being admitted to colleges and universities, they are unable to pursue further education. We all can imagine a student coming to join University of Nairobi all the way from Taita Taveta District. Once he is in Nairobi, he is required to pay so much money which the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) did not give him. Most of them get even more frustrated because they are admitted to pursue courses they never applied for. So, in those admissions as they come to university, we find that somebody had most likely asked for admission for medicine or education and then they end up being admitted for Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree, for that matter. That is a general degree. They fall out on the way. It would be very difficult for me to complain about the difficulties of admissions of those students simply because our universities are so bogged down by lack of facilities. They do not have enough capacity to accommodate everybody. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) has only a capacity for about 11,000 students in the regular programme. These students are determined by the listed programmes. The JAB would look at the cluster subjects to be able to qualify who will pursue which course. As I said, the numbers are quite prohibitive and they cannot be able to go beyond. Say for example, 50 or 100 students in the country have applied for dentistry and their only 1552 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 23, 2007 capacity is about 20 students. They cannot accommodate the others even if they were qualified. They end up giving them different courses or their second choices or even courses they never really applied for. In the last academic year alone, the total capacity for all the university was as follows: University of Nairobi has a capacity of 2,704. However, it was able to admit slightly more than that because of the affirmative action. They admitted 2,735. Kenyatta University has a capacity of 2,525, but also they were unable to accommodate everybody because of some breakdown of some facilities. They only took 2,377. Maseno University whose capacity is 870 only, took 826. Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has a capacity of 631, but they were able to admit 660 only. Moi University which has a capacity of 1,975 was only able to take 1,904. Egerton University which has a capacity of 1,451 was only able to take 1,361. Masinde Muliro University was able to admit 357 against a capacity of 350. The total intake was 10,506. However, because of affirmative action, the JAB increased the number by another 10 per cent to make it 11,000. This has been the trend in the last five years. The Kshs800 million is the money which has been given by the Ministry of Education to them for disbursement to the students, and Kshs1 billion is what they usually recover after a big improvement in their collection. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, almost 100,000 students have been relying on this Kshs1.8 billion, compared to Tanzania where they have approximately 50,000 students and they have been spending up to Tshs100 billion, which is equivalent to Kshs6 billion. So, there is a need for the HELB to be given more so that they can reach their target of about Kshs4 billion to be able to make a real impact. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I was giving out those figures, I think the children who are coming from marginalised areas have been left out. Looking at the points which are going to go to university this academic year, if they are a bit lucky to go university, mostly likely it will be either 71 or 72 points onwards, plus grade A minuses and As. A place like North Eastern province, which, from Independence, has not even been able to produce more than 60 students to the regular programme will now be locked out completely, because none of its students is going to reach the B plus of 72 points. So, most likely all of them will be left out of the regular programme. Most likely, the only ones who will be able to come from there and go to university are the ones who are able to go to schools outside the province. This does not affect only North Eastern, but also the Coast Province, other remote areas, the upper Rift and south Rift Valley, where we have a big problem, and the upper Eastern. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to urge the Government to provide a public university in each province, and looking at the provinces the way they are, it looks like it is only Coast, Eastern and North Eastern Provinces which have been left out. It will be very important because it is going to stimulate the local interest of those students to be able to go to school. The other problem which the universities usually face is lack of facilities. The factors which affect are usually accommodation, staffing of teaching and non-teaching staff, other materials and equipment. For example, if you train somebody for dentistry, they will require far much more than a person who is being trained in Bachelor of Arts. But the Ministry of Education has been able to just give a uniform amount for a student who is going to do Bachelor of Dental Surgery and a student who is going to do Bachelor of Arts at the rate of Kshs140,000 per student. This does not make sense because the demand is high, but it has only been able to take 16 students for so long, and then finally now they can only accommodate 20 students, when so many other children are qualified. So, we want the Government to sit down with universities and come up with a strategy of getting students because of the labour demand. It is very important for them to look at the labour demand and be able to say, for example, in agriculture you need more students than in anthropology, because you will roll out students from anthropology but they will not be able to get May 23, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1553 jobs, yet we need more graduate agricultural officers to be able to help in building this nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to move and call upon hon. Dr. Sammy Rutto to second this Motion."
}