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"id": 328697,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/328697/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "The Minister of State for the Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands",
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"content": "(Mr. I.E. Mohamed)]: Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I also want to join my colleagues in congratulating the Minister and thanking him for bringing the Bill to the House. This Bill will really help us to implement the new Constitution and take education to a higher level. I want to join my colleagues on what they said about boards of management and sponsors. They have done a good job in the past. A number of them have continued to do a good job but, as everybody else has said, some of them have taken that job to levels that are not acceptable – levels which are outside the Constitution. There have been instances where students have been denied their rights to worship and other religious needs. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, since Independence, Kenyans have been very tolerant of each other in terms of religion and ethnicity. People used to move from one part of the country to another to pursue education. People would come to Nairobi all the way from Turkana and all over the country. But what has been creeping in, in recent times? Some schools are even trying to stop students from taking subjects like Christian Religious Education (CRE), if it is the North Eastern Province; or Islamic Religious Education (IRE) in some national schools. I wonder where we are headed to. During my time at Wajir High Schools, Muslim students were taking CRE and doing very well. So, it should be individual choices by students to do any subjects in school. Nobody should be denied the right to take CRE or IRE just because he is a Muslim or a Christian. Even if it is one child in that school, he should be facilitated to take it. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am told that in some places, boards of managements are making money out of the schools. Therefore, proper audits need to be done. The traditional sponsors are gone. Other people have come in, who are actually making money out of those particular schools. There is need for such people to be flushed out. There is an issue on the Bill, in respect of which I hope to bring an amendment. The Bill says that we want to reach out to mobile children and children from disadvantaged places. We have a million children in Northern Kenya who are out of school because their parents have chosen to adopt a livelihood system that requires them to move around. That is not to say that their system of livelihood is inferior to any other system. We should have the Ministry of Education and “Ministry of Schools”. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, those children deserve to have access to education. With technology, it is now possible to use a variety of tested methods to provide education to those children. So, I will be proposing that we actually put it more formally and strongly that we have a nomadic education institution, whatever the name will be. We have too many Commissions. So, we can have another name for that institution. It could be a Board to bring about all the experience of the world and make sure that we reach those one million children. As we speak, we have nomadic schools under the Ministry of Education which move around. So, there are requirements like “physical addresses”, which need to be reviewed to ensure that we conform to all the types of schools we have in the country. The penalty that has been provided in this Bill, for parents who fail to take their children to school, should apply to nomadic families only after the Government sets up the institution I have proposed, and it has worked for some time to ensure that it is possible for every child to access education. We should not make a law which is impossible for people to obey. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I say that because education is very important for everybody but for the pastoralist, it is even more important. It is one of the best strategies for exiting pastoralism. Pastoralism is changing. Population is increasing. The more people that go to school, the more people we will remove from pastoralism to find alternative livelihoods. The few remaining pastoralists will be able to eke out a livelihood from that particular land. In every year, mobility remains the most economically viable way to use in those areas until we probably get more money from oil and change that particular kind of livelihood. Adult education has not been taken seriously in this country, particularly in the last few years. I am happy that it is now being given attention. I want it to be given even more emphasis. Maybe, we can find a way of putting in a clause that says we have a campaign for this sub-sector for a number of years. It is tragic that almost 50 years after Independence, we still have an illiterate rate of 80 per cent in Northern Kenya. Do you know how many teachers we have across Northern Kenya? They are slightly over 200. I wrote to the Minister about this recently. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am just from my constituency. One of the districts has recorded 93 per cent illiteracy rate. So, unless we come up with a campaign to make sure that the current adult group is actually given literacy, this situation will continue for a long time. The best school enrolment rate in all the counties in Northern Kenya stands at 40 per cent, which means that unless we do something about the nomadic education system that I have talked about, we will have a higher level of illiteracy. We all know that without a literate population, all other Government programmes will fail. I hope to bring an amendment to this Bill to give additional emphasis aimed at bringing about equity and giving more resources to those areas to ensure that we increase the level of literacy in those areas. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}