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{
    "id": 425925,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/425925/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 229,
    "type": "other",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the civilization of a society is measured by the weakest in that society. In other words, whether or not Kenya is a civilized society, is not dependent on professors and lawyers. It is actually dependent on those who know the least, because they are the ones who have to be taken care of before the others. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is true, indeed, that there has been a lot of attempts at adult education. But those attempts have been a process of three steps forward and then two steps backwards. At every level, when you look across the country, whether it is in the north or in the south, you will find that there is no comprehensive way that adult education has been handled. You will also find that a whole community or group of people may not be fully integrated into in society simply because they have not been educated. It is really sad particularly because many of them in their youth may have wanted to be educated, but had to make sacrifices so that younger brothers or sisters could be educated. It is very usual in our society to find an older brother who sacrifices so that the younger ones could be educated. So it is only right and fair that we give them opportunities. When you look at the economy that we run today, we run a knowledge based economy. Some people who have no education cannot take very great advantage of some of the opportunities that exist in a knowledge-based economy. Take for example a parent whose children are in Nairobi and cannot get money to come to see them, a parent whose children are in the United States of America (USA) or in Britain and cannot possibly travel there. However, if they were educated as adults and had knowledge to do technology such as skype or facebook which I am sure my friend Sen. Karaba understands very well or does not, if they had that knowledge, then they will communicate with their children whether in Kenya or outside Kenya for free. They do not even have to pay a thing to talk to their children in USA and other parts of the world. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we think about it, our nations were left behind in the last revolution because of lack of knowledge. It was the first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta who actually proposed that adults must start being educated so that they can communicate with their own children. I think it is only right and fair that we look at our older people, particularly those who want to be educated. The other aspect to remember is that life expectancy has changed dramatically. It used to be that if you live to the age of 50 years, you are very lucky and thankful. However, today we can expect people to live a lot longer than they used to and their useful life is a lot longer than before because of improvement in health. We know that people in their 70s are very healthy people. Consequently, there is no need for us to waste that life. The fact that people are old does not mean that they are not intelligent or cannot grasp issues. Therefore, investing in our old people is the right thing to do. If we invest in the current generation of old people, it might actually eliminate the need to have such schemes. In an ideal situation, we should not have adult education because they should have been educated at the right time in primary and secondary schools. So, this is not something that can go on to give us problems. An educated adult 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."
}