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{
    "id": 381067,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/381067/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 50,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 447,
        "legal_name": "John Krop Lonyangapuo",
        "slug": "john-lonyangapuo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I join my colleagues in thanking Sen. Elachi for bringing this Motion at this time when devolution is taking root here in Kenya. We are talking about youth in Kenya, and we are talking about the NYS, which was a very good avenue for churning out skilled labour; and which was funded by the Government as opposed to the polytechnics where parents and youth themselves paid fees. We read that when the NYS was established in the late 1960s, it generated and brought up well thought and well planned syllabi where skilled labourers – tailors, masons, carpenters and various other types of skilled labour that was available then, including even drivers – were trained. During those days, it was said that if you got NYS training and you were a driver, it meant that you had undergone a lot of training and that you were in safe hands; and nearly all of them would get positions at that time. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the problem now arose when it looked like the NYS did not tailor and improve on the agenda that had been given to them to produce this skilled labour. It reached a time when it became a place where people would just go to as a stepping stone when they wanted to be employed as police officers, army offices and so on, because they had to go through the NYS. Why was this the case? This is because their syllabus changed from paying attention to skilled labour to training people on physical preparedness where people were trained from dawn to dusk in drills, running and so on; which was good, but that alone was not enough. Again, I think there was also a shortage of funding because the Government did not put sufficient funds in the NYS to the extent that some of the existing outlets – like Sen. Elachi proposes to have more here – were closed down. I know of one such outlet in West Pokot County which was closed down and which was very famous in the 1970s and 1980s, called Lomut NYS. The two main priority activities that were taking place there were cotton production, where they had hundreds of acres; and, number two, they were also keeping a very good breed of animals on top of the other courses that they were offering. I am also told that other NYS outlets closed down to the extent that we now only have the Gilgil outlet – which is not very feasible – and the one in Nairobi. The only time that I encountered the existence of the NYS was about three years ago in 2010, when the Government was rolling out the irrigation scheme in Hola, and the NYS officers were brought in to do farming there. Their work was very brilliant; they cleared the bushes, prepared the canals and this is what they are supposed to do. Today, they still recruit them but we do not know what they do in the stations where they are taken to. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we expected that after they have been trained for one or two months, they are now supposed to go and work in the relevant field on attachments, like in the road works. You will remember that, two years ago, we had a programme called"
}