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"content": "In the previous order, we were speaking about a Bill which had all these things. Let us be honest. Let us face it. We are losing some of our most productive people, pupils and students and that is the future of Kenya. We have to be bold. I know that I am speaking for many of my colleagues. Anything that threatens the survival, wellbeing, health and safety of our people, we as leaders, must come out openly and fight it whether it is popular or not. Leadership is about responsibility. You cannot lead from the back. The rate of drug, substance and alcohol abuse in some counties, for instance, at the coast and in Nairobi is very great. It is going to become worse until we tackle these things like I was trying to do with a Bill that was before this House a few minutes ago. It is horrible to watch adults, a man and his wife, on a Saturday, at 10.00 a.m, going with their children, some of ECDE age, girls and boys of about seven years driving to the nearest bar and sitting there from 10.00 a.m. to midnight drinking. They drink there and get drunk. After they get drunk, medical doctors say that their balances are lost and they end up doing shameful things. That is how we are losing our younger generation; our children. This is the responsibility of adults. The issue of drugs and substance abuse is something that should be looked into. Very quickly, I would like to speak about the issue of curriculum. The problem is not with the ECDE. The problem we have in this country, around the quality of the people we are producing from our colleges emanates from one thing called curriculum. I would be happy to see – I am told that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) is working for a curriculum for the ECDE. I have been asking myself, 51 years after Independence, what has the KICD been doing that this is when we are working for a curriculum for ECDE? What has that institution been doing? We do not even know what we are teaching our children. Therefore, children in one county will be taught this while those in another county will be taught something different. Let me speak to this issue of curriculum development because over and above ECDE, we need to look at our curriculum in primary and secondary schools because we have lost it. Every day, I try to be home by 8.00 p.m so that I can sit with my six year old girl who is in Class One, who is grappling to do homework. The poor girl has homework in Mathematics, and Kiswahili. She is very terrified and tells me, daddy, please, help me finish this work because if I do not, I will be in detention. There is something that they say happens to them when they do not complete their work. They are kept outside in some banda for most of the day. This is traumatizing young children who are now being exposed to complex mathematical formulae and scientific phenomenon that are irrelevant, intrusive on the development of these children and repressive. Countries that have strong and patriotic and productive populations are very careful on what they teach their children. My vision for this country is that one day I will see children in nursery school, standards one up to five all the way to standard six spending more time singing and making friends. Since the singing, making friends and playing will be done outside class, when they go to class, instead of teaching them the Pythagoras Theory and telling them that and teaching standard four girls and boys about obtuse triangles and about the geometry which should be introduced at Form Three, tell them that their country is called Kenya; tell them that Kenya is a great country; tell them that in the western part of Kenya, we have the 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."
}