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"id": 238814,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238814/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Syongo",
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"speaker": {
"id": 316,
"legal_name": "Zaddock Madiri Syong'oh",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of replacement of teachers who have retired and those who are deceased beats logic. In a situation where an establishment is already in place, we should not be so slow to replace retired or deceased teachers. Why can the replacement of a retired or deceased teacher not be automatic? Normally, it takes very long. Meanwhile, the pupils suffer because of the distortion of the teacher-pupil ratio. The other point I would like the Minister to consider is a matter of routine to mainstream schools, especially those which have been put up using CDF. In many cases, increased investment through the CDF is done to absorb the additional intake of students to secondary schools, as a result of the Free Primary Education Programme. We are told that for the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to send staff members to a school, it must have at least 100 students. That does not make sense. If you start a school with Form One students only, how would you have 100 students in one classroom? Some of these issues require simple logic and not applying rules blindly. I would understand if a school had students from Form One up to Form Four, yet it has less than 100 students. There are also some areas in this country where you just have to accept the number of students who have enroled in a class, and provide them with quality education by giving October 18, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3041 them teachers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you talked about hardship areas. As I talk to you now, we need to encourage teachers to serve in hardship areas. The hardship policy is not being managed properly. There is a lot of bias in determining which areas are hardship and which ones are not. Allowances are also being given to teachers who teach in extremely well endowed areas and not those which truly deserve it. I would like to request the Ministry to look into the criteria of granting hardship allowances to teachers so that, indeed, we compensate and encourage teachers to stay and teach in difficult areas which were explained by hon. Nyachae. At the end of the day, those students who leave school must have a market. When is the last time that the Ministry reviewed its curriculum? The world has moved on and ICT is now a central issue. There is huge demand for people who are qualified in ICT. We are no longer guaranteed of employment in the formal sector. There are no more white collar jobs. Most of the children who leave secondary schools go into self-employment. Is it not high time we made ICT and business studies such as accounting and book keeping compulsory, so that boys and girls who leave secondary schools and want to be self-employed can look after their money and manage their business well? I think it is also necessary for the Ministry to consider re-introducing \"A\" levels. More than 60 per cent of students in foreign universities in Uganda are Kenyans. One of the reasons why they go to Uganda is to do \"A\" levels so that they can gain entry to Commonwealth universities. As much as I know it might take some resources, I think it is high time we considered the re-introduction of \"A\" levels, at least, in some selected schools to stem the huge amount of foreign exchange we are losing because our children want to go to Commonwealth universities but cannot go there with the certificates our examinations council provides. There is a big market for trained teachers outside Kenya. I had a privilege of leading the first Kenyan delegation to go and negotiate with Southern Sudan. We need, therefore, to look at our teacher training colleges, increase their capacity, modernise them and tune them to the demands in the region so that we can be a hub for training personnel for this region. I think that is a great opportunity for us, given that we have excess personnel in many of our sectors. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to make my last point. There is need for us to encourage private investments in setting up universities and technical colleges. One step that would really help is if the Ministry can standardise the curricular of some of the generic training courses or programmes so that we have a standard and common examination council or examining body that sets the standards and examines and provides certification. Presently, I know that there is no standard curricular and no standard examination and certificate for our technical colleges. So, every technical institute provides its own training, develops its own curriculum and at the end of the day, we do not have a formal quality coming from all these polytechnics and so on. I think it is necessary, at this time and age, for us to look at standardising and have a common examining authority in order that we can be sure of the quality of the end product and, therefore, can be able to market it. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}