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"id": 39691,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/39691/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Kamar",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Environment and Mineral Resources",
"speaker": {
"id": 33,
"legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
"slug": "margaret-kamar"
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for allowing me to join in this debate. I would like to say that I oppose it for one reason. I oppose it because it is a very good idea whose time has not come. I believe that this is the future and we should go there. We should enable our children to move from primary school to secondary school uninterrupted. Unfortunately, when I analyze what we require to be able to change, I see that it will be impossible for us to implement. The reality is that the largest population of Kenyans is now in pre-unit. Last year, 760,000 candidates did the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) while the Form IV candidates were only 250,000. The universities have said that in their double-intake, they will only take 60,000 students. That tells us that our society is extremely on a sharp pyramid. If we have that kind of a pyramid, it means that if we change the system to what the hon. Member has proposed, we will not be able to practically do it because you cannot squeeze 750,000 students in the space to be occupied by 250,000 students. That is the only space we have in our secondary schools. We may try and triple the facilities or even create Form I to Form IV in every primary school because this may have to be the reality in the future that I see this Motion taking us to. However, the problem is that the university system has not opened up. This means that we will have to upgrade our youth polytechnics to capture students only from secondary schools. The reality that we must also bear in mind is the fact that Free Primary Education (FPE) and Free Secondary Education (FSE) have not been realized in this country because parents complain bitterly that they still pay something. So, for us to capture all the children in the university bearing in mind the primary school education policy that we have, first, we must ensure that we have the FPE practically on the ground. We also need to ensure that we have proper FSE because it is a right to Kenyans, but we have been unable to provide it for budgetary reasons as we have heard from the Ministry of Education. I propose that we should ensure that primary and secondary school education is free for real so that nothing else stops us from handing over our children from primary to secondary. The reason nobody complains that they do not have space in secondary education after 750,000 pupils do exams is that even parents give up immediately after Standard VIII. They give up naturally because they cannot afford. So, we still have schools that are under-enrolled because parents cannot afford. So, we need to address the real issues that make education impractical and do not make us realise the very good vision that this Motion has. This is because this Motion has captured what education is all about, that is, the reduction of poverty and diseases. All these can be reduced with education. In my view, we must ensure that primary and secondary education is free. The other area that we must target at this stage is youth polytechnics. We had two polytechnics when I became the Member of Parliament for Eldoret East. They were Ainabkoi and Sogori. The two polytechnics only had an enrolment of 40 students. When we passed a Motion in this Parliament that the Government will fund the establishment of youth polytechnics, I was encouraged and registered four new youth polytechnics. It was my dream that by the end of next we will have 10 youth polytechnics. This is because the offloading of children at Standard VIII is really a disadvantage to our children. We have many of them in the whole country who finish Standard VIII and go nowhere. I still believe that the Government should go ahead and increase the youth polytechnics as an exit point for the 500,000 pupils we do not know where they went to last year. They did not go anywhere because the room in secondary education could only accommodate one- third of those who did the KCPE. So, we must, as a country, relook at our strategies in education. Standard VIII remains an exit point that you can recognize. This is because without any certificate all the way to Form IV, exiting without any exam will not enable the other entry points to have their own standards. The youth polytechnics must have their own standards and they must be able to capture the products of the education system in a manner that can be standardized and measured. For us to be able to do that, we must have this examination in Standard VIII so that whoever exits at that point and cannot join a secondary school because of poverty or for whatever reason can have an exit point. Universities must also be encouraged that the people who exited and joined youth polytechnics are sometimes very bright students who end up in national polytechnics that offer Diploma Courses. These students should be able to leave the Diploma programmes and go to university programmes in the shortest time possible and with payment from Government. There was a programme that was called âMature Entryâ. That programme which I hear has been scrapped by all the universities was a very important programme for students who evaded the universities basically because of fee payment or avoided joining polytechnics because of lack of fees. Those students went to the youth polytechnics, the polytechnics and then the universities. I would like to challenge the Ministry of Education to take up that matter again. This is because the universities suffered something that made them eradicate mature entry; that the Government did not recognise a mature student who was to go back to the university. The Government did not pay the quota for those kinds of students. It is very important that the Government takes over those students. This is because the mature students are very important. They go through the system out of difficult times or the challenges that they get during their youth and are unable to go directly to secondary school and then to universities. So, we must provide for such students. That is why I again urge the Ministry of Education to investigate the fate of mature entry in the universities. That is part of the issues that have been raised in this Motion. For us to be able to answer the needs of this Motion which will address the problems and the challenges that we have because of the system we have today, it is not by removing the Standard Eight examinations. To me, it can be done by allowing children to progress on whatever route they take as a result of national challenges we have. The reality is that the challenges our education system is facing are a result of issues which cannot be under the control of the parents. As a country, we must ensure that we have free education in primary schools and secondary schools. We should allow for exit because of the populations that we cannot handle in the higher education systems so that they can do something. With those remarks, my friend Mr. Kioni, this is a very good Motion but its time has not come."
}