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"id": 222577,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"id": 326,
"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for this opportunity. I would also like to say that Mr. Oloo-Aringo is the indomitable Mr. Oloo-Aringo. The one who would be a doyen 1184 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 9, 2007 of the Kenyan Opposition politics asked at one time: How can you take cows to the river without a bull? The bull was Mr. Oloo-Aringo. This Motion should have been brought sometime back. This Government has done a commendable job in plugging the leakages in revenue collection and expenditure such that we have almost doubled the collection of revenue in this country from Kshs197 billion to almost Kshs400 billion. To extend truly free education in this country will not cost much. My estimation is that it will cost about Kshs12 billion. This is a small fraction of some of the indulgences that our country has been involved in. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, to bring up a human being, you must train him or her between the age of six months and 18 years. Therefore, that is the time you must devote all your resources in that formative period so that you can develop and bring up a wholesome person. This is a person who will not be easily persuaded to commit crime. This will be a person who will be productive to the nation and one who will keep law and order. This will happen if we train them during those formative years. There is no better way of training or bringing up somebody than providing education in those formative years. In fact, when Mr. Oloo-Aringo brings the Bill, he must extend it to nursery and pre-primary school where our small kids are taken to school. The poor parents cannot afford and, therefore, sometimes, they do not go to pre-primary schools. We should have free education from the cradle to Form IV. If you go around the country, even if you go to the slums of Nairobi, you will see many young people who have dropped out of school because their parents cannot afford to pay for their secondary school education. We are doing this when we are setting aside some money for use by the youth, who constitute a very small fraction of the total population of this country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, recently, the President announced that he is going to waive tuition fees. I believe that this Motion will convince him to go the whole way so that he can provide free education in all our secondary schools. If we do not do this, then education will be for the rich. Education will be for those who can afford it. That is a small minority of the population of this country. We used to have free education. However, one morning, the World Bank imposed on Kenya cost-sharing, right from primary school to secondary school. We never thought that we can be able to provide even free primary education. So, when that was done by this Government, they have discovered that we can actually provide free education. We should, therefore, extend it to secondary school. Facilities are being built now by the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF). In my constituency, for example, since the introduction of CDF, we have built 19 secondary schools. What we need in those secondary schools is to have kids there. We want to encompass all our kids who qualify to be in Form I so that we can give them this education and prepare them for life. If you were to drop out of school at Standard Eight, you will not have gained knowledge to handle your own life. For example, you will not have been exposed to computers. You will not have been exposed to learning about your own country at Standard Eight because a child completes Standard Eight at the age of 12, 13 or 14 years. So, we should support this Motion. We should also urge the Government, in one voice, as the Parliament, that we believe investment in free secondary school education is proper investment. You have seen this Government investing in loss-making corporations. Recently, we invested Kshs6.7 billion in Telkom Kenya. How many people use Telkom Kenya services in this country as compared to the number of students who would have utilised that money to access secondary school education? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should urge the Government to extend this facility without politicising it. They will be doing it as a national duty as a responsible Government. If you go round the country, if you go to Kibera, for example, you will see young people trekking in the May 9, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1185 morning to the Industrial Area to look for casual jobs. Those people have dropped out of school and there is no hope in their lives. Therefore, they will be easily persuaded to indulge themselves in social malpractices. With those few remarks, I beg to support this Motion vehemently, to extend free education to secondary school."
}