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"id": 238826,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/238826/?format=api",
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Sambu",
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"speaker": {
"id": 137,
"legal_name": "Alfred B. Wekesa Sambu",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I support this Vote of the Ministry of Education. First, I want to talk about the issue of universities. Some of the students who enrol for the parallel programmes miss joining the regular programme by just a few points. However, the fee charged for the parallel programme is very exorbitant. The amounts charged are not favourable for Kenyan students. That is why Kenyan students are enroling for courses in universities outside this country. They are enroling for courses in Makerere University in Uganda and other universities around the world. It is quite unfortunate that university lecturers are threatening to go on strike soon because they want a pay hike. One wonders where all the money being paid by students under the parallel programme goes to. We need to have the fees for the parallel programme revised downwards. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, regular students are the ones who are given loans. Why do we discriminate against others? You find two students coming from the same village or family and yet one of them gets a full education loan and the other does not. Why do we discriminate against others? Since this is a loan, give it to them because, after all, they will repay the money when they get jobs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will talk about a topic which has been discussed here and this is the issue of withholding certificates of Form Four leavers. In which clause in the Education Act is it said that you withhold the certificates because the child or the parents could not pay school fees? It is illegal! The Ministry of Education is torturing Kenyans. In fact, I want to tell this Government that I have been sympathetic to it but this issue of withholding certificates will destroy the goodwill people had in it. I have a student who attained a B+ and since 2001 when he sat for his exams, his certificate has been withheld. Imagine the kind of chances that boy has missed with a B+. There is a girl who cries to me every day to pay her school fees because her certificate has been withheld since 2002 and she had a C+. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, talking about my own district, Nandi, most of the schools here were built by our own people. We sold our cattle. In many cases it was by force. The Boards of Governors (BOGs) are forcing all our schools to be boarding ones. We thank God we are not an ASAL area and so the distances between the homes and the schools is not great. You find a child living one kilometre away from the immediate day school being told to go to a boarding school. The problem is this: A boarder will have to pay Kshs30,000. The Ministry may give guidelines but the head teachers and the BOGs do not take that. They may say fees is Kshs20,000 but the student will end up paying Kshs30,000 and in the end they do not pay. That is why you get certificates being withheld. It is not only that. You find the children being sent home every weekend. The boys and the girls are on the road. Why do our children have to be forced to attend boarding schools? October 18, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3047 Under which law of this country are schools made compulsorily boarding? We should have day schools but in ASAL areas, because of the difficulties, boarding schools should be introduced there. However, in the high potential areas including my district of Nandi, we want our schools to be day schools. Those who choose to be boarders should be prepared to pay the exorbitant fees whatever range it is but for the rest, let them be day scholars. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we built nearly all the schools in my constituency. We even built Kapsabet Boys and Girls High Schools. So, why are we being forced to make them boarding schools and then we are charged Kshs30,000? I am prepared to go to court on this matter to tell the world that the Ministry is denying our children educational opportunities because if a child has passed the exams and then you deny him or her their respective certificates, then you are making that person hopeless for life because he or she cannot prove that they even reached Form Four class. So, I want to say that we should build more day schools so that, instead of parents paying Kshs30,000 as school fees, let them pay Kshs9,000 and maybe where there is maize, they can donate one bag of maize which will serve as their lunch. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, while I support the demands by primary and secondary school teachers, they should also be subjected to performance contracts vis-a-vis salary increments. In my own district of Nandi, you will find that Kapsabet Boys High School is in the same area as Kabiyet High School. Kabiyet High School is also an old school. It has all the facilities and teachers but you never get a student attaining a grade above C+. Why? I thank the teachers in Kapsabet Boys High School because they work hard. I am not only talking about these specific schools but we have to peg teachers salaries countrywide to performance contracts so that they can work hard. Those teachers who fail our children whether in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) or Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) should lose their jobs after a certain time. I support the salary increments but they have to be pegged to performance contracts. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, talking about employment of teachers, I do not know why the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is against Mosop Constituency. We go to the District Education Board (DEB) and find that the Ministry of Education has done the shortlisting of teachers. The District Commissioner sits on the DEB as its chairman and we pass what the DEO and her staff have done. We have a good DEO who is a lady. We pass it to the DC because we find no fault with it. It is written to the TSC and then we are told that these teachers from Mosop have to be reduced. I want to be told whether we are part of this Republic and if we are, why are they against my people? In the other year when they employed teachers, I had to come to the TSC and quarrel with the Chairman. I do not want to be quarrelling. This year again they have reduced the number of recruited teachers by eight and transferred them to other areas. It is thoroughly discouraging. I think justice has to be done and be seen to be done. In other areas, they are now employing graduates of 2003 and 2004. I am still struggling with graduates of 1998/1999 and 2000/2001. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, somebody has also talked about the registration of the BOGs. It takes six months and, meanwhile, there is no BOG because the headmaster says that you are no longer on this BOG. So, without a legally gazetted BOG, the head teacher and a few friends do what they want. So, I agree that the Minister is busy. Even if it means amending the Education Act here, we should do it because I think it is in the rules. Let the Minister change the rules so that we find somebody else, like the Permanent Secretary or an Under Secretary, to be signing the lists of the BOG members. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to end by saying that we should go back to the 7-4-2-3 system of education where we had \"A\" levels. If we had \"A\" levels, then I think the Government could afford to provide free secondary school education. The only expense the Minister will have introduced is in the ASAl areas because he would have to introduce boarding schools there. 3048 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 18, 2006 Provide us with free education in secondary schools and make them day schools. Let us build all the day schools we want with the CDF and then provide free secondary school education. I tell you if you want to sit on those benches again come 2008, provide free secondary school education and make it day-based. You will have to support the secondary boarding schools in ASAL areas. However, I do not see any reason whatsoever in the high potential areas to force parents to pay for expensive boarding schools. However, give us free education and I will tell Kenyans to vote for you. Thank you."
}