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"speaker_name": "Mr. Angwenyi",
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"legal_name": "Jimmy Nuru Ondieki Angwenyi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Motion. First, I want to commend the hon. Member for bringing up this matter. I hope that once we pass the Motion, the Government will be ready to implement our decision. Most of us went through the former education system where there were levels of filtration. You could not have a student who could not perform for 12 years. There were various levels where students could be deregistered and redirect to do something else. I remember during my time, when one got to Standard Seven and they could not perform well, they had to join Sigalagala to train in masonry. If one could not join Form Four and did not make it to higher education, he or she had to join a tertiary college. When one finished Form Four and did not pass well, he had to join another tertiary college and train on how to provide services to our people. What is happening now is that we are jamming our institutions. That is why our universities cannot accommodate a quarter of the students who qualify to attain the criteria set by the Ministry of Education for joining universities. That is embarrassing and I am surprised that the Assistant Minister is not surprised that they have set a criteria for joining the university, yet they cannot fulfil their obligation to all the students who qualify. We have broken the hopes of our youth. When a student works hard to attain a B+ because she or he knows that the grade, according to the education policy, can qualify him or her to join the universities but is disappointed by not being enroled due to lack of accommodation is not fair. Why can we not provide education for these students and let them operate from their homes? Why we do tax them by offering parallel education which is very expensive? The fees we pay for our children to study through the parallel degree programmes are higher than what we would pay for our students to study in universities in Russia, Malaysia or some African countries. The Ministry is proud of what it is doing. They want to oppose this good suggestion which will help them filter at various levels the progress of our youth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have pumped a lot of information and knowledge into our youth. We all know from the old adage that you can be a jack of all trades, but a master of none. We are producing jacks of all trades and masters of none. If we adopt the system of education that is proposed in this Motion, we will get people who are masters of their professions. We should know, for instance, that when a student is enroling for university education, he or she will study medicine or law because he or she will be prepared for it. That was done to Mr. Kajwang and it becomes the reason why he was able to join Makerere University to pursue his education. Imagine if Mr. Kajwang went through the 8-4-4 system of education and he was expelled for fighting for the rights of students, he would not have joined Makerere University because he would have had to go through the \"A\" Level system of education. Therefore, let us prepare our youth for professions. If a student wants to join the teaching profession, he or she should be prepared as he or she progresses in his or her education. December 6, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4195 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let us also, when we adopt this system, make it mandatory that students must pass the Kiswahili subject. We should be proud of our national language. Last week, I attended a conference in Geneva. There were a variety of languages in use, which I have never heard before. These languages have been approved for international use. Unfortunately, Kiswahili language was not among these languages. Some of the languages are spoken by less than 30 million people, but Kiswahili language is spoken by over 100 million people in East and Central Africa. For a change, let us be proud of ourselves. Let us not imitate the English, Spanish or the Portuguese. How many Portuguese are there in the world compared to the people who speak the Kiswahili language? Let us make it mandatory that other languages be optional. If we do this, we will improve the quality of education at various levels. The Government will afford to provide equal education opportunities to all our youth. A student in Nairobi has better knowledge than a student in a primary school in Kitutu Chache Constituency. The student in Nairobi has access to the internet and also has computer knowledge. The student in Kitutu Chache Constituency has no access to those facilities yet education is being provided by the same Government. If we adopt the old system, we will be able to provide, at various levels, the same education throughout the Republic of Kenya. If we have the high schools as they were, that I had to travel from Kisii District to Kikuyuland to study, this will be very good. Some of my best friends are the people I met at high school. We came from all the communities in this country. Therefore, the Ministry should not confine us to this discarded system of education which has failed our students. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should encourage boarding schools. In fact, up to Form Four, we should encourage segregated boarding schools so that we have good girls' and boys' schools and when they go to university, they will have matured and they can respect each other. Hon. Sambu was saying something to the effect that when you put those kids together before they mature and learn life, that is when they do the things he was saying they do during prep time when there are no teachers. We should have adequate opportunities---"
}