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    "id": 401230,
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    "content": "attached to that Report captured the mood of the Committee Members and gave us an insight of what exactly they were doing. I just want to make brief comments on the problems that they generally face in most of the areas. These are problems that are faced across the various counties. I would like to highlight some specific cases, some of the insights that they have brought out in the report and also to make suggestions. The suggestions I will make would be starting with the objectives of the Committee as set out. The objectives are more or less stated in the same way as the first Report was done. It would have been nice, as the Committee goes to specific counties, because they are different, if they could bring out specific problems in those particular counties, especially dealing with early childhood education so that right from the beginning, we have an insight of specific problems in specific counties and exactly what their expectations are. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in their first Report, there was the issue of staff shortage, especially for early childhood and development education. There seems to be either lack of interest or lack of processing of personnel over time to ensure that they are trained and put in the right places. I cannot fathom why such a shortage would be there in the first place considering that there are facilities for training at different levels, including the Montessori schools which do a lot of training. So, we have a problem of distribution of personnel for early childhood education and development. These teachers seem to be going to specific areas. I am afraid the trained ECD teachers are going to the private sector. It seems that they are the ones who are having the biggest advantage in terms of recruitment. We know how critical it is to have early childhood education and development at lower levels so that the child is motivated and gets interested in learning. So, it is a big disadvantage, especially for the public schools that we have not been able to amass the potential of personnel. It is not really about the training; rather it is selective for them to go to the private sector rather than the public sector. Apart from staff shortages mentioned in the Report, it would have been nice to find out what the comparative figures are across the various counties because I think it is general. If we are talking about policy and the implementation of that policy, it would be important to know exactly how many teachers we are short of and in which subjects so that we can rectify the situation in terms of planning. I think it may also be difficult to come up with those details because there has not been a clear policy put in place in terms of ECD. I think we need to emphasize that education for our young children is very critical and without that, it becomes impossible to move to the next level. The determination of performance at primary schools is through ECD and, later on, the transition to secondary schools. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also the issue of lack of infrastructure for polytechnics. Some of the polytechnics that were visited lacked basic infrastructure, they were not well planned and lacked tools. There was also the idea of referring to them as village polytechnics which is not attractive to the youth. So, we should think of an innovative way of transforming these middle level colleges. More than ever before, Training and Vocational Centres (TIVET) are very important for this country. As we 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"
}