HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 239753,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/239753/?format=api",
"text_counter": 288,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Mwiria",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 190,
"legal_name": "Valerian Kilemi Mwiria",
"slug": "kilemi-mwiria"
},
"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for that clarification and for giving me the opportunity to respond to debate on this very important Motion, on which I have consulted with you and a few hon. Members of this House on the possibility of an amendment being brought forward. Having consulted with hon. Members, it seems that the spirit of the Motion is good. The intention is to take care of those students who are very deprived, namely, orphans. We, in the Ministry, are concerned. The Government has been concerned with alleviation of poverty, and focused on the very poor of the poor. That is why we introduced the free primary education and the bursary programmes. It is also for that reason that we have other programmes in the Ministry for marginalised communities in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, all this is consistent with the fact that we must take care of our very poor. We appreciate the fact that there are no poorer people than orphans. Therefore, in this regard, I would like to join hands with other Members of Parliament to support the Motion. My initial thought was that we could expand the bursary programme, even though we are currently facing the problems we have been talking about. If we did that, we would be able to sort out the problems facing our poor children. It is in the interest of hon. Members, as well as that of this Government, to ensure that bursary funds are available to support our poor children if, indeed, we want them to benefit from the education we are providing. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, our current emphasis on the bursary programme are orphaned children. However, the money which is available is not enough. As we have been told, 2546 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES August 2, 2006 orphans are very many and the amount of money that is available is very limited. We are also not able to provide extra support to those children, outside schools, to support the initiative. Therefore, we obviously need more resources and much more commitment. Even though we expanded the bursary programme, we still are not able to give 100 per cent of the required amount, as it was before. When you give a limit, the amount that we give to one child, whether Kshs10,000 or Kshs20,000, is calculated on how far an orphaned child has to go in education, because the money we have is far from enough. To be able to do much more, we would also need to call upon other groups to support the initiative. Those are groups like our development partners, donor organisations, hon. Members through their CDF programmes, rich traders and farmers in rural areas, who can put in some money so that as Africans, we can continue with our traditional role of supporting those who are less fortunate. It is not enough to focus on the bursary programme if we do not target other affirmative- related initiatives. The first one is that when we support poor children and orphans in secondary schools, be it in district or day schools, their opportunities to progress are limited because we know in what kind of schools children make it to universities. Therefore, we must have an affirmative initiative programme that targets the poor children from the point of view of which kind of schools we take them to. If we take them to district schools, then we are not helping them. I am, therefore, supporting the idea of having a quota system to support orphans so as to join national schools and other good schools. In addition to that, eventually, we will need to put in more resources to our day schools and district schools so that they can compete with national schools because most of our children have to be in those schools. We need to target an affirmative programme for the poor, especially orphans. We should also improve the conditions of the schools they attend so that in 20 years' time, we do not continue to specifically direct them to particular schools in the country. We should also focus on training institutions in the country. These are our diploma colleges, universities and teacher training colleges to ensure that if we really want to give orphans an opportunity to make it in this country, they do not get satisfied by going through secondary education. We should give them an opportunity to go to colleges and especially, for degree programmes which seem to be quite competitive. That kind of follow up, right from primary school to secondary school and eventually to universities and other training institutions is necessary if we are, indeed, out to support orphans. It is not good enough to give them education in whichever institution, which cannot make a difference. Once they have graduated, I think we need to have specific income generating programmes for them. We need to support them in the business world to be self-reliant in many ways because if they do not have capital, they cannot compete with those who come from more privileged families, who use both their education and their advantage with regard to capital, to extend that difference in equality between those who have and those who do not have. Basically, I am saying that education is not all you have to offer to poor children. You have to give them other opportunities like training and support them to be self-reliant, as business people and as individuals who are able to stand on their own, even with their education. If, indeed, we were serious--- I think in this country, we have an estimated 200,000 orphaned children in our secondary schools, or maybe, slightly less. I am convinced that it is possible to give 200,000 students free secondary education. I agree with those who are saying that, eventually, we should target free secondary school education for all. However, resources are limited. I would propose a phased programme whereby we should start with the very needy. I have in mind the orphans. We should support them throughout secondary education, so that we can give them an opportunity to compete with those who are luckier than them. If we double the current allocation to the Bursary Programme from Kshs700,000 to Kshs1.5 billion, and given that the budget of the Ministry on the same is Kshs100 million, we would be able to educate those orphans in good secondary school August 2, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2547 institutions, depending on how we set out our priorities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, that would not be possible until we expand our tax collection base. We must insist that those who do not pay taxes do so, because it is from that pool that we support many Government programmes. Therefore, we must be more alert to deal with those cases. We also must be alert in terms of allocating the money that we have collected. I am pretty sure that, if we look at what we have for education and played around with the figures, it is possible to borrow from some items and expand the bursary kitty. I am saying that with specific focus on the 200,000 or so orphaned children in our secondary schools. If we are much more transparent in the way we use the resources available for secondary schools, field offices, Jogoo House Headquarters and other facilities supported by the Ministry of Education, we can come up with some savings."
}