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"id": 225462,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/225462/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Karaba",
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"speaker": {
"id": 232,
"legal_name": "Daniel Dickson Karaba",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is true that following the introduction of free primary education - it is even contained in the President's Speech, he attested to the increase of primary school enrolment from 60 per cent to 83 per cent since the introduction of free primary education - we have had enormous increase of pupils in primary schools from 6.1 million to 7.6 million which is an increase of about 1.5 million. So, anybody translating that into what we call Curriculum Based Establishment (CBE) where a teacher is supposed to teach 40 pupils in a class, you will see that we need 37,500 teachers who should have been recruited by that time, following the increase. So, there is something wrong with the planning. If it is true that 37,500 teachers need to be recruited and it has not happened, then it means that there is a lot that we are missing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me look at secondary schools. The President himself attested to the fact that there has been an increase of 778,000 students to 928,000 students, which is an increase of over 150,000 students. Going by the CBE, where a teacher is supposed to teach 40 students, we need an increase of 3,750 teachers in secondary schools. That is as a result of the introduction of free primary education since 2003. If that is going to be the total sum, it will come to 41,250 teachers who should have been recruited before the introduction of free primary education. That means that we lack forward planning and that is leading us to a lot of problems. That is even translating to very many \"bogus\" students coming from our institutions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we are focusing that this year, 2007, the Government is going to have 100 per cent enrolment for primary schools. So, what will be the increase of the teacher recruitment? That is where we go wrong. Therefore, I am asking the Government to consider that issue a crisis. The shortage of teachers should be seen as a crisis. It is a very serious phenomenon. We should be able to tackle it and come out of it. If we are going to think about the industrialisation of our country by 2020, we should think beyond ICT. That is all we say, but do we have enough teachers for ICT? We do not have them! Do we have enough teachers who will teach sciences? We do not have! If you go to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), you will realise that the shortage of teachers, particularly for sciences, is serious. If there was a shortage of science teachers even before the introduction of free primary education, what is the situation right now? What is happening now is, we produce half-baked students who move en mass to secondary schools. That will not help us at all. So, if we care about the future of this country, we should continue thinking about the proportionate recruitment of teachers as the number of students increases both in primary and in secondary schools. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, also contained in the President's Speech is that the best thing we can do to expand accessibility to education is to introduce day-schools. That is true. With the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), very many hon. Members have put up quite a number of secondary schools. After putting up secondary schools using the CDF money, are we getting teachers to manage those schools? What we are doing is to pass the buck to the parents. The same problem will recur every other year. In future, the burden will even increase to a point where 706 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES April 18, 2007 the parent will say enough is enough and the problem will burst. Therefore, we are sitting on a time-bomb. Let us think about the teacher recruitment issue. We should also think about the way we reward them. Teachers have really been very patient for a long time. With the introduction of free primary education, they take care of very big classrooms and they are not worried. They have not even had their salary increment and absenteeism may lead to suspensions and interdictions and a lot of harassment. Let us treat teachers as people who can really get us across to the other side of the border. Our teachers should be able to teach our students well and enable them continue with further studies in the universities. As a result of the shortage of educational facilities in Kenya, we now have many students moving out of this country to join institutions out there. It is not because they really want to go to Uganda or Tanzania to learn, but it is simply because of the shortage of educational facilities in our country. Why can we not increase our budget so that the Ministry of Education has more money which will be used to cater for students who finish primary and secondary schools? That way, we shall have our own bank of learned people, whom we could even export, as a labour force, to other countries in Africa. That is possible. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, why are we allowing private investors to exploit our students to the maximum? Why do we think that it is only private academies that can provide quality education to our children? That has created problems in the education system in our country. In fact, it is going to increase the gap between the rich and the poor. The rich will continue becoming richer and the poor, who cannot afford quality education, will continue becoming poorer. I can assure you that if you visit any of the academies today, you will find that most students you get there are from rich families. Those are the people who can afford to pay fees in the private academies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to support that the Government needs to recruit more teachers."
}