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{
    "id": 400900,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/400900/?format=api",
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    "content": "through education that we will be able to steer this country to industrialization. When we talk about professionalism, all you need to do is to become an engineer and learn to maintain what Bill Gates or Steve Jobs invented. I think this country needs to create a legacy of innovators. Our philosophy on education must be reviewed in respect of the current challenges that we are facing. Every engineer wants to graduate because they want a job and not because they want to improve the field of engineering. We are blessed because we have some of the best educationists seated in this House. My former Vice Chancellor and Principal of Chepkoilel Campus, Sen. (Prof.) Lonyangapuo is here. Another lecturer from the same esteemed university, Sen. (Prof.) Lesan is here, Sen. Karaba who is a distinguished educationist is here and a host of others. We have a distinguished cadre of intellectual elites in this country in this House. What is required of us is now to use the shifting paradigms of education to be able to spur national development and growth. It is not enough to be trained as a lawyer, but it is what we need as innovators. It is not enough to be trained as a doctor, we need people trained in medical engineering who can advance the cause of medicine in this country and a whole spectrum of other professions that this country needs to proclaim itself on. Madam Temporary Speaker, this report has tried to touch on some of the more salient challenges in this country. One of the things that we must acknowledge is that education is a fundamental right. It is neither discretion nor a prerogative, it is a fundamental right. It is only through education that this nation will bridge the gap of inequalities that we see. I remember if you read broadly the civil rights movement in the United States of America; there is talk about equality through education. Even the first African American President, Barrack Obama, whose parentage borrows heavily from Kenya, is there not because of the major resources that he enjoyed or the privileged position that he hailed from, but because he was able to distinguish himself as a scholar and his ideas stood ahead of everybody else. That notwithstanding, he is very eloquent as a speaker. That said and done, those of us who have read about him know that he was a distinguished scholar in Harvard and other schools of high distinction across the world. Therefore, education must be our next challenge for this country. If you look at some of us, these opportunities that we have been accorded to sit in the Senate stem largely from the fact that we got an opportunity to get an education. I also believe of the same for some of the young people. What else do we have to bring to the Senate apart from the fact that we acquired an education and we were able to compete with people across the spectrum? Madam Temporary Speaker, this is the kind of legacy we must leave for this country. We must promote equality through education. There were times when you heard about Mombasa and persistent complaints by the people of Mombasa with respect to unemployment because of literacy levels. When engineers were needed to be employed at the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), none could be found from the local communities. You need all kinds of expertise which we do not have. Today we can talk about Turkana which has been endowed with certain natural resources. I think God is talking to us that he wants people of Turkana to be the frontiers or the principle avenues of this development. 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"
}