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"speaker_name": "Mr. C. Kilonzo",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I wish to second this Motion; that this House urges the Government to implement free secondary education programme for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and other causes. 2540 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 2, 2006 Children are the pride of any nation. The pride of a nation is the youth. They hold the future of this nation. That is why it is important to have healthy children and, most important, to have children who are educated. That is why the Free Primary Education Programme was a move in the right direction. Free primary education was evidenced when this Government took over. We had very many kids who used to stay at home and now they have access to education. However, better would be the introduction of free secondary education, not only for orphans but also for the poor kids. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, education is the best way to fight poverty. It is also the best way to fight crime and develop a nation. It pains me when I see the Government and, in particular, the Minister for Finance, Mr. Kimunya, not taking education seriously. In the current Budget, there is no provision for bursaries. As things stand now, we have children in secondary schools who were relying on bursary funds. We have no idea how these children are going to go back for the next term when schools open, yet we have somebody who has been mandated by the President to allocate funds to the Ministry of Education. It pains me that the Minister, perhaps, does not understand the country very well. He comes from an area which is very much endowed with natural resources but 70 per cent of this country is under poverty. HIV/AIDS has caused a big problem. We have very many orphans. The Minister was advised by a Parliamentary Committee on the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) not to scrap bursaries and his proposals to transfer funds from the Ministry of Education to the CDF were also rejected. The same Minister was advised by his own officials at the Treasury against the same move. He was also advised by officials from the Ministry of Education on the implications of scrapping or transferring those funds as he was proposing to the CDF. However, all that fell on deaf ears! We have learned that His Excellency the President has, indeed, spoken to the Minister for Education to reconsider his decision to suspend secondary school bursaries. This was a very polite move by the Head of State to request the Minister instead of instructing him to restore bursary funds. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Minister has refused to play ball and restore these funds to the Ministry of Education. What can we do with such a Minister? Most Members of Parliament, when they go to their constituencies, find that 90 per cent of the people they see have failure to receive bursaries as their biggest problem. I have a child who is my neighbour who has no parents and needs bursary money. I request the Minister to avail secondary school bursary money to him. We need to prevail upon the Government to reconsider its move. I am talking about the Government, but it is, indeed, one Ministry. The proposal by the Minister for Finance to reduce CDF so as to give the money to the Ministry of Education will not be acceptable. We are not going to accept CDF allocation to be reduced. What was allocated previously under the Ministry of Education as bursary was a mere Kshs800 million. What we are calling for is Kshs2 billion to be availed in this financial year to address the problems of orphans. This country has a lot of resources and our problem is not lack of money. Our problem is how to use our money. We have failed to put our priorities in order. A very sad case was yesterday when a Member of Parliament brought a Question to this House asking why the Government could not provide one dialysis machine in each province. The Minister for Health then said the Government has no funds. The Government cannot provide one dialysis machine per province, which is a total of eight machines due to lack of funds. However, the same Government paid the Goldenberg Commissioners an average of Kshs40 million per Commissioner. There is money leave a lone for orphans but for free primary and free secondary education. I have some arithmetics to prove this assertion. I am going to take the worst case scenario of an average of 5,000 orphans per constituency, which is very high. That will give you 1 million orphans in August 2, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2541 secondary schools. If we allocate Kshs10,000 per orphan, it will amount to Kshs10 billion. Let us go further and give funds for free secondary education for everybody. I am an admirer of one hon. Mwiria and look forward to the time when he will head the Ministry of Education. If we take 2 million students, it will cost us Kshs20 billion to do this. Kshs20 billion is enough to provide free secondary education. What will be the impact of such a move? This country will be able to provide education to every child. In this way, we will have an edge over other neighbouring countries. We will be able to provide manpower to the entire Africa and world. Then we will be able to get income from educated Kenyans working in other countries. Today, we are proud to have our nurses working in Namibia. That is because they went to school. We also have our teachers in Rwanda because they went to school. The Southern Sudanese Government requires about 80,000 teachers. This is just one sector. I am yet to talk about other sectors in that country like health. Why can we not provide free secondary education in our country? If we do that, we will become a manpower centre in the world. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the best way to fight poverty in our country is through education. We need to produce a lot of manpower and even export some of it. That can only be achieved if we ensure that there is free secondary education for everybody in this country. We also need to go further and expand our facilities. It is sad that the Ministry of Education has increased the cut-off points for joining our public universities. Why is this the case? It is because there are no adequate facilities in our public universities. As we talk of free secondary education, I would like to request the Government to increase educational facilities so that those children who leave primary school are not denied the opportunity to join secondary school. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to second."
}