HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 230585,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/230585/?format=api",
"text_counter": 302,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Sambu",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 137,
"legal_name": "Alfred B. Wekesa Sambu",
"slug": "alfred-sambu"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Motion calling for change from the current 8-4-4 to the seven years in primary school, four in secondary school, two years for A-Level or in a technical school or what they call grammar schools in other countries and three years in the university (7-4-2-3). Since changing to the 8-4-4 system of education, several things have happened. First, although the Ministry denies, there are many Kenyans who are joining other universities abroad. When they go out to nearby countries, they find that the system there is not similar to ours. When they join Makerere University, they spend two years in A-Level before they can qualify to do a degree course. They pay the same fees as the university students there. We are in touch. In fact, in the North Rift, many students go to Uganda and we have to pay for the first two years for A-Level. However, they pay the same amount as university students. Therefore, we are draining our foreign exchange because they do not pay in Kenya shillings but have to go and convert. That is first a symptom. Secondly, even the students, and the truth should be told here, who go to our universities, they are told that it is a three-year course. However, if the Minister could table how many students go through their degrees courses here in all these universities in three years, there will be none. They spend five to six years in the universities. If it is a parallel course, the amount at the rate of nearly Kshs150,000 to Kshs200,000 a year, it is an astronomical cost to the parents and to the nation. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would strongly recommend that we go back to the 7- 4-2-3 system. The two years for A-Level should be made optional. If a student does not want to proceed to university, we should open up many technical schools and polytechnics so that, that student, who is not planning to go to the university, will get a technical course to be an artisan or a technician. We have told this Government, and even the KANU Government when we were there, December 6, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4193 that a nation is not only built by degree holders. The majority of the people who build a nation are mainly the artisans and the technicians, for example, tailors and mechanics. Even professionals, like doctors, have to be supported by diploma or certificate holders. The doctors have to do their work with the help of the nurses and lab technicians. These are diploma or certificate holders in the particular courses. So, we have to establish these institutions. I am happy that we are putting up polytechnics with the money we are getting from the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), but the Government should help us. One of the ways to help us is by re-introducing the 7-4-2-3 education system. The two years should be used to help the students qualify technically as artisans or technicians. The Government is wasting a lot of resources in turning schools into compulsory boarding schools. I come from an area where the secondary schools were built by the local communities. In my own district, Nandi District, there was no Government assistance whatsoever. We built our own schools! However, the Government has come in and dictated that the schools must be boarding. Whoever goes to a secondary school must be a boarder. He or she must pay between Kshs25,000 to Kshs30,000 and yet, the schools are just close by. They were built by the local communities. I am talking about high potential areas. It is a different matter when you talk about arid and semi-arid areas. I am talking about areas where primary schools are within two or three kilometres apart, and there is a secondary school built by the community in-between. They are forced to become boarders and pay Kshs25,000 to Kshs30,000 a year and yet day-scholars in nearby schools pay Kshs9,000 a year. With four children who are boarders, you are forced to \"cough\" Kshs100,000! If you have four children who are day-scholars in a nearby school, you pay only Kshs40,000. That is a saving of Kshs60,000 per year. That is enough to pay fees for those four children in the next year. I request the Government to seriously consider those issues - the 7-4-2-3 system, boarding and day schools. I would like to know the policy of the Government. Under what section of the Education Act are those boarding schools created and made compulsory where parents must pay Kshs25,000 and yet, they contributed to the building of those schools? Under what section of the Education Act do you derive those powers? Is it the District Education Boards (DEBs) or the head teachers? They want boarding schools as a way - I am sorry to say so - of exploiting parents. That is a fact! When the auditors from the Ministry of Education go to those schools, they do not look at the truth. Whereas I support the Government for having introduced free primary education, how many children manage to go to secondary schools? What affects their education is the issue of expensive boarding schools. We would like the Government to allow day schools where the proximity to \"catchment\" primary schools is near. What we can save from expensive boarding schools can be used to employ more secondary school teachers. There are many schools which experience shortage of teachers and yet, boarding schools are made a priority. It would be better to save the money so that we could employ enough secondary school teachers. I strongly speak in support of day schools in high potential areas in Kenya. For arid and semi-arid areas, the Government should support boarding schools. But for high potential areas, let us save that money to employ more teachers. In any case, where did this Government get money to employ extra teachers and not pay for boarding schools? Where did this Government get the notion that one has to be a boarder? Boarding is a notion of the rich, those who can afford to pay for it. Instead of paying Kshs25,000 or Kshs30,000 per year as boarding fee, I would rather buy my child a bicycle so that he can be riding it to school. I went to a day intermediate school; Class Four to Eight, and we used to go cycling for ten to 20 kilometres away. Why can we not do it now? Our children can by cycling to school and develop some discipline. I believe that there is a lot of indiscipline in boarding schools in the evenings. Right now, three or four of the schools in 4194 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES December 6, 2006 my constituency - Moisergoi, Mosoriot and Lelmoko High School, just before they closed school, the students rioted because children from the neighbouring villages were idling after being expelled after they failed to raise boarding fees. We have to be realistic."
}