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{
    "id": 328699,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/328699/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 402,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Kosgei",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Agriculture",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 59,
        "legal_name": "Sally Jepngetich Kosgei",
        "slug": "sally-kosgei"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Spear, I thank you for giving me an opportunity to support this very important Bill. This Bill has, obviously, undergone a lot of work, because I have seen that on areas which have hitherto now been ignored, especially special education, the Bill has been crafted extremely well. As hon. Members probably know, we have children with special needs in schools, with no teachers or appropriate facilities. They stay there for a short time and then give up and go away. So, I am very pleased to see particularly this area being given attention. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am worried, in some ways that, what we are trying to address is some level of equality, but the infrastructure in our schools is very unequal. When I talk of infrastructure, I am not talking only about the classrooms although classrooms are also very important. Let us look, for example, at modern technology and the way of studying. You can access any book anywhere in the world, if you have the right equipment. In our local schools, such facilities are not there. Let me tell you a short story. About four years ago, the Director of Basic Education went with me to visit some schools in the neck of the woods. When we got to one of the schools, it was lunch time. There were some little girls, who were in Standard Two, sleeping in their classroom because they could not go for lunch. The teachers were waiting to come and teach them at 2.00 p.m. and at 3.00 p.m., ask them to plaster the floors with the cow dung they had brought so that they do not get infested with jiggers. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this was a mixed school. But the boys had long run away from school and they were not going to go back at all. We have tried to improve this situation using the Constituencies Development Fund and what the Ministry has done. The reason I am raising that issue is because in this Bill we are talking about the functions of Parents-Teachers Associations, which are to develop infrastructure and look after the development projects. I have a feeling that their capacity is wanting. Children continue to be rained on because we moved from this to another school where the rain came down; it was easy because the children could exit through any part of the wall. This was because there were no walls to talk of. The school had been constructed in 1953 and was condemned. There are many schools like that around the country."
}