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{
    "id": 400933,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/400933/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 233,
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    "content": "central and western regions. I want them to go to the northern part of this country. They will be surprised. They are talking about bad infrastructure in these areas, but in northern Kenya, they will find no infrastructure at all. They will find that in this part of the country, the Government has not done anything. People from these areas have gone to school courtesy of religious organizations. For instance, in Marsabit County, all the institutions there are faith based. The ECDs, primary schools and secondary schools are all faith based. There are very few, if any, Government institutions. There is a lot to be done in those counties for us to catch up. In Marsabit, we are told that illiteracy levels are as high as 80 per cent. We know that illiteracy is a measure of how many people in an area have gone to school. The question is, if there are no schools, where would these people go to school to stop being illiterate? We need to have the institutions so that these people can go to school. There is a lot of work to be done. Before we come up with any legislations and policies, I would like to urge the committee to visit the worst hit parts of this country, so that they see how bad the situation is and come up with legislation that will improve the condition of all the people in this country. It is very important that we now concentrate on our mandate. We have devolved the ECDs and polytechnics. In some areas, a whole village has one primary school. This is a school which takes not less than 500 children, but only has one ECD centre. The village may be having over 2,000 children who have attained school going age. So, by virtue of lack of infrastructure, these children will end up doing what their parents know best and that is herding. That is why the literacy levels will not change until we change the approach we have. We should have more facilities and more ECDs. Now that these are responsibilities of the county governments, we will have some hope because the county governments are run by the locals who know the conditions of their people. In order to improve the literacy levels, we will require more ECDs. One primary school could be served by five or six ECDs which are close to the villages. Most of the time, you will find that the school is five to seven kilometres from the village. That means that a child should be seven years or more to be taken to that school. So, the situation is prohibitive. That is why literacy levels are difficult to change 50 years down the line because the infrastructure to cure it is not there. I urge the county governments to take this seriously because it is a responsibility they have been given. Madam Temporary Speaker, we must put in place quality ECDs. That is why I support the recommendation in this report where they say that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development should come up with a standard curriculum. One of the reasons students from the northern part of this country could not access university education is because of the infrastructure in those places. When the results come out, you will not find any student from the northern part of Kenya in the top 200 students countrywide. It is not that these people have lower capacities in terms of grasping issues, but because the infrastructure they have does not allow them to compete with others. But when they come to the same institutions here, they perform as well as others. The county governments must now do justice to their people on the ground by making sure that they have quality ECDs. The national Government which has the role of developing the curriculum should develop a standard curriculum which can be used throughout the country so that we can 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"
}