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{
    "id": 443322,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/443322/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 147,
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "great, stone houses are great, boarding facilities are fantastic but we must appreciate that what we are ultimately talking about is a mental thing and not an infrastructure thing. Infrastructure is simply a means to an end and not an end in itself. As we seek to change the societies and build classrooms in all these areas, we should remember that the content which is going to be taught in those boarding facilities is what is going to change the society. It is the quality of teachers we are going to provide in those teaching facilities that is going to determine how well those children are going to perform. We have seen situations where we have built fantastic classrooms but children have continued to do badly. This is because the quality and standard of the teachers is a key aspect in terms of improving our education standards. We have seen what we might consider as a cycle of law standards; you take somebody to a school that is of low standard and that individual becomes a teacher in the same school and the vicious cycle of standards that will never improve continues. We have situations where even the teaching of English Language is a problem. If you look at some of the papers that are being written by university students, you will be horrified to see the level of English that is being written in those papers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, as we address the matter of infrastructure, we should address the quality of the teachers in those areas. When you have a vicious cycle like we do, where the teachers are taught badly and, therefore, they teach badly, a cycle like this is only destroyed by two things; either we inject new thinking, new interactive methods of teaching and the use of technology. We will be able to lip frog so that the schools in semi-arid and arid areas can actually embrace technology and become better schools than even those from the other areas. I am informed by those who know the Bible better than me such as Sen. Lesuuda that in the book of Mathew, it says that those who are behind will go to the front and those who are in the front will go behind. Therefore, we would like to imagine that if we use technology, do not go the old thinking and go through the same process that the other went through, it is possible for us to lip frog these schools and make them better schools, better facilitated than even other areas. We should re- emphasize that we are not just talking about the construction of a class room, we should emphasize change in the cultural aspect and thinking. It is by doing so that we are able to reduce issues of tribal conflicts because educated, endowed people are very unlikely to be engaging themselves in those kinds of areas. It is important that those people also get opportunities in employment. We have situations, for example, in Turkana area where people are saying that the oil fields that are being constructed there are not employing enough people from those areas. There is a catch 22 situation here; whereas the oil companies wish to employ people from that area, they are not getting the engineers that they would like to employ from those areas. It is very unlikely that whatever we say and do here, it is very unlikely that an oil company is going to employ a herdsman in place of an engineer. It is simply not going to happen. Therefore, what we should be addressing is not the symptom of the problem, but the problem itself and the solution to the problem. The preventive rather than the preventive measures that we should take is to ensure that education is facilitated and enforced. We know that free education especially at the primary level is not voluntary and we should ensure that when we say that education is compulsory, it must be seen to be compulsory. The Government must ensure that it is compulsory. 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."
}