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{
    "id": 238109,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238109/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 255,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Mango",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 288,
        "legal_name": "Christine Mango",
        "slug": "christine-mango"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this very appropriate Motion. I take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. Member for bringing this Motion to the House because in Kenya, we have two tribes: The rich and the poor. The poor are the majority in this nation. In this country, we have areas where more than 70 per cent of the population experiences poverty. These areas should be treated specially when we are talking about economic growth and economic recovery strategy. We should address these areas without talking in a blanket form about poverty. This Motion brings out very important points about skills and resource allocation. We keep talking about achieving industrialization by 2030 but we will not get there until we create skills among our people. In this country, we have free primary education. We are enroling all the children for free education up to Standard Eight. After Standard Eight, out of the 600,000 that are sitting for exams we may place 200,000. Do we ever care to find out what happens to the remaining 400,000? These are still Kenyans but we do not care whether they fall into oblivion. That is where we need to start. We need to find out what happens to those children who fail Standard Eight exams. This is the group that ends up being the marginalised poor with no skills, no form of income, unemployed and roaming around streets begging but we do not seem to care. We had a few village polytechnics but they are not even equipped to give skills to these children. We need to develop the human resource. We should look at the human resource from primary school up to university. As it is today, we do not seem to care about what happens to the human resource. Right now, we are talking about the youth. We classify the youth from 18 years to 35 years. What is happening to those below the age of 18 years, most of whom are Standard Eight dropouts? We need to give them skills so that they can lead normal lives and join the working nation as we have been told by our President. You cannot work without skills. Therefore, we need to follow up these Kenyans and give them skills so that they can also contribute to nation-building. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in Form Four, you will find that about 200,000 students will sit for exams, out of which 10,000 students will go to the national universities and the rest are left to fend for themselves. That is another level of wastage of human resources that we do not give skills to take care of themselves. We leave them unemployed and eventually they become the marginalised poor who cannot contribute to the economy of this country. When they end up as hawkers we send policemen to clobber them. We are not being fair to the youth of this nation. We have the Ministry of Youth Affairs and I hope it will come up with proper strategies to take care of the Kenyan youth. It should not just be a Ministry to be used for campaigns come 2007 elections. It should take care of our youth. We do not seem to care what happens to these youth who do not go to university. They are left to fend for themselves. As a nation, we will not move forward without planning for these youth. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the next marginalised lot are women. You will find a few of them at the market. These are people who do not have the capacity to run even the small businesses they are trying to run. They try very hard but they do not know how to start a business, October 25, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3133 do book-keeping and the basics that are needed to do a business. Therefore, we need to do capacity building for them. They do not have the resources---"
}