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{
    "id": 382796,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/382796/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 113,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Karaba",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 232,
        "legal_name": "Daniel Dickson Karaba",
        "slug": "daniel-karaba"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Madam Temporary Speaker, for giving me this chance again to contribute to the Motion on education and devolution to the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, much as I would appreciate supporting the Motion, there are some grey areas that we need to look into. Some of these areas - I hope the Mover will agree with me - include the way we will handle the devolved secondary and primary education. This is because some counties cannot even manage to run primary and nursery schools. If we were to devolve education to the county level, we would risk putting particularly the employment of teachers into jeopardy. I say this because before the teachers were employed by the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) in 1960, it was up to the then local councils to recruit and develop some of the educational institutions. This process was a mess in very many counties. So, we are likely to regret when it comes to who will be responsible, particularly for the recruitment of teachers. How will these functions be devolved to the counties and yet some of the developments so far, are not at par in all counties? Some counties like Nairobi are at very advanced stages. So, if we were to compare them with other counties which are yet to devolve, the moment they start with education, there will be a lot of inequalities in the education facilities which will be provided in those counties. Therefore, I would advocate that before we discuss issues on education, we should have a stakeholders’ meeting where we can psyche the counties which will be involved, instead of it coming from us because it will appear like we are the people imposing the devolution on them and yet we are going to provide the oversight role in the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, I am a bit hesitant to debate this Motion because I know what it means, particularly for some areas which have not even taken off academically. There are places where there are no schools. There are nomadic communities where students keep moving from one place to another because there are no permanent classrooms. I wonder what will happen when it comes to the implementation of the laptops project. This is because the laptops will be carried by the same students from one place to another as they look after livestock. Since enough classrooms are not available in some of these areas, we are going to create more hardship because some of the students, who otherwise would have moved out to go and learn in other schools in well endowed counties, would be disadvantaged. They will remain in those counties and not further their education. This has happened and that is the reason the quota system was introduced. This was an experiment after a very long debate where the Government found it fit to have students in some disadvantaged areas move to those areas which are advantaged. As a result of that, there was a lot of student integration all over the country. This is what created what we can call patriotism. People would move from, say, Mandera in North Eastern to Machakos. Others would move to Shimo La Tewa. That was during the time The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}