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"content": "Therefore, that sets our children on the wrong footing all together. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I would like to appeal to the Jubilee Government, much as the Laptop Project is a priority for them, let this also, before children join Standard One, be a priority for them. Unless you have a proper foundation in education, I can tell you that all these others are only superstructures and if the foundation is wrong, everything is wrong. Maybe I can say that I managed to do very well in my educational career because my father was educated and we went through this sector of school before I joined Standard One and, therefore, I ended being number one throughout. Others came in without going through this sector and I was ahead of them. So, this is an area which has been neglected by all of us. I want to take this opportunity to emphasize that particular area. I have seen that the recommendations are very good and I would commend and support them. I can see that one of the recommendations is that the communities do not clearly understand the importance of the ECDE centres, thus making the children skip this stage of education. So, really, the community must be made aware of the importance of this. What normally happens when you go to the roots of the community, you will find that the children of the educated teachers know the importance of education. Although they may not be taught before they go to Standard One, because their parents are teachers, they begin being taught at home. So, they have a head start when they go to primary school. That is how classes begin being created in our communities; the classes of the educated and those who are not educated. It now coincides with those who are earning some money and those who are not earning and then those who have it and those who do not have it. We should correct it at that level. Let every student go to this early training programme. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I entirely agree with the recommendation for the county governments to particularly carry out sensitization programmes to ensure that the children are enrolled for pre-primary education. I do not know which counties have done that, but I have seen one or two counties in the newspapers which are now focusing on the pre-primary education. I would like other counties which have not taken this pre-primary education seriously to really take it seriously because ten years down the line, those who would have taken it seriously will be above those who would not have taken it seriously. There is also the issue about the training of the teachers. That is very important. There is the issue of not having a very clear curriculum. Again, that is very important and an issue which I felt that the national Government should take seriously. Then there is the issue of employment and remuneration. There are some of those who have been trained at that level. They are actually self educated; they pay for their own fees to go there and when you are campaigning and they come to you, you also try to assist so that they are trained and in the process, they can assist you in getting a few votes here and there. So, some training has happened but after the training, again, they do not have jobs and because the Senators are not there, they cannot be paid. Therefore, it is important that this issue be taken seriously at the county level. In fact, with proper training, it can provide some employment for the idle youth who are just idling at the market place. Maybe they cannot afford the high fees of proper teacher training colleges. So the county governments, at a cost effective way, establish some of these training programmes at the county level. 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."
}