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{
    "id": 403738,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/403738/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 149,
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    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "University. This was about two years ago. He was proposing that we need to come up with a policy to review school curriculum. The Government has not done that up to now. This policy is supposed to change the way we teach our technical subjects in high school. We are talking about counties. What type of people are we trying to produce? I visited the Kenya Industrial Training Institute (KITI) in Nakuru, the only specialized one which received from Japan tailoring machines. This was in 1957 and yet we want tailors to make uniform for our children. We should have machines instead of going outside to buy products that we have capacity to produce. We have chosen to become consumers of people’s products. If we put a high premium on innovation and technology, those things will disappear. I saw someone who has come up with a good irrigation style. He does not use the drip irrigation that is used in Israel. He is talking about shower irrigation. The only people who have tried these are Kenyans. However, the idea has permanently been in the laboratory. This idea came up two years ago, but we have not commercialised it. Nobody knows it, but is called the Shower Irrigation Technology by Isaac Munyiri. He appears to be very old. However, the day he will retire and go where old men go, the idea will also go. The document I have here shows the shower and the amount of water going directly to the plant overhead. That is what is required. This is what is required. Drip irrigation takes water to the roots, but shower irrigation releases water to the leaves. This is the same concept with rain and that is what makes plants healthier. We can do these things if we choose to. I have been looking at our funding in terms of universities. The Science and Technology Department of University of Nairobi was given very little amount of money with all its research potential. We should assist all the universities. Recently, Kabarak University became the top university in Kenya and numbers six in the whole world after coming up with a noble idea in business. I do not know what it was all about, but this means that our children, with our systems, can come up with things we can consume. Our problem is that we keep on saying; buy Kenya build Kenya. That is by mouth. But the reverse of that happens. We buy outside products and build outside countries. When you buy everything we have around, our money goes to outside countries. Do you want to tell me that nobody knows how to make toothpicks? All of them are imported. If you go to any supermarket, you will find that they are all imported. They are made in China and Korea and yet the trees are from Kenya. They are carried to Mombasa and loaded to ships. Where would they get trees from anyway? Look at the innovation technology we should be having in terms of our furniture. Kenyans can do it if we put money in it. With regard to agriculture and animal production, we tend to believe and trust in what comes from outside. However, if we can do it using ICT which is also innovative, we would go very far. So, in this Motion, the Senate is saying that the national Government should review education policies. They need to renew these policies and to mainstream science, technology and innovation so that our curriculum at all levels is compulsory. I beg to move and ask the Senator for Kakamega, Sen. (Dr) Khalwale to second."
}