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{
    "id": 39696,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/39696/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 322,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Bishop Wanjiru",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Housing",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 372,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Wanjiru Kariuki",
        "slug": "margaret-wanjiru"
    },
    "content": " Thank you Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. It means that we have people who have skills but they never got the opportunity to be in a college where they could get certificates. Globally, under the Education for all Programmes driven by UNESCO, most countries have committed to achieving universal enrolment by the year 2015. My understanding is that Kenya is not an exception; we will have to follow suit, sooner or later. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, hoping that this Motion will pass, universal primary education is also one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that we are pursuing as a country. Even as a Government, if we have to fulfill the MDGs then we must acknowledge that this is the way to go. This Motion may have to wait a little bit for implementation but its passing in this House is in this Tenth Parliament. I would like to add that we probably borrow from Finland, a country that has a broad-based open access education system. Finland has a very unified school system. The child gets to school from the age of seven years and continues until they are 16 years old. At this time, they are mature and have grown and can face the rest of the challenges of this world. In addition, if we can borrow from Finland, we would have to remove the recurring question about the selection and scramble for secondary places. Our parents have to go through a lot of problems to get their children into secondary schools. My colleagues in Parliament here will agree that they go through a lot of challenges at the beginning of the year. Parents come chasing them to help them get access in particular secondary schools. This is because the system that we are in right now is discriminative. We need to remove that discrimination. It is in the new Constitution that we cannot discriminate. I add that this cannot happen even on the basis of education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to add that when we pass this Motion we are going to minimize early marriages. Our girls coming from Standard Eight and ending up being wives is not acceptable. It will help us minimize early marriages where girls can continue with their education. It will also help us minimize idleness. We have too many youths who are idle today. They are idle because they are neither in schools nor have jobs. I wish they were even at school where they would be doing something productive for their lives instead of being idle. When we remove idleness, we are going to be able to eliminate prostitution and recruitment into militia groups so that our youths will not end up in the wrong groups simply because they are idle. This Motion will also minimize school dropouts and, therefore, by the time the child finishes Form Four he or she is better equipped with skills and abilities, education and knowledge that can help then make them better people out of their lives. Today, I know that we have the challenges of the 8-4-4 Free Primary Education system. This is why my colleagues are opposing this Motion. Our free primary education has not worked very well. But does that mean that we destroy the future simply because today it is not working well? No! We should even bring another Motion to perfect the free primary education. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I agree we have challenges; we do not have enough schools. Even now with the 8-4-4 system, we still do not have enough schools. So, the reality is here with us. We still have to build more schools, improve our education system and as we improve on all that, why do we not lay a new foundation so that we improve on a new foundation and not try to put new blocks on the same old foundation? Some old foundations are too shaky and they are not working, notwithstanding that the 8- 4-4 is so cumbersome. It is unbelievable! We have our children still doing homework after spending the whole day in school. They do homework up to 8.00 p.m. or 9.00 p.m. They are still running around with books over the weekend. We are already stressing our communities. We are stressing our future generations. We need to stop stressing our children. I know that my colleagues in the Cabinet are waiting to oppose this Motion. However, I urge them to rethink their positions. It is my take that this Motion is a very good one. We may have to be a bit patient to implement it but this is probably one of the best Motions that can change, improve and add value to our future generations. I, therefore, support that we scrap KCPE."
}