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{
    "id": 469760,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/469760/?format=api",
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    "content": "of development that we are in. There are many people here who challenge areas just because of the way the environment of that area is. But going by history, it is important to state that when we had the discovery of this country, the first person who settled in Kenya preferably settled along the coast, and I have been to some of these schools along the coast, and they are not even to the level of being called schools because they have not been developed enough to match the competition of other schools, as you talk of this area around Nairobi. If you check the reason why some of these schools have not been developed, it has nothing to do with history, because these are the first schools which were started by people like Dr. Krapf himself. Coming to the development of universities, it is very important to note that universities will take a lot of resources. It will, of course, have people who will be enlisted and most of these people will have to come from primary schools all the way to secondary schools, up to the universities. It is unfortunate to note that most of our primary schools, as it was stated by Sen. Musila, have inadequate facilities. So, for us to imagine that we are going to have universities without even having those primary schools well done and staffed with sufficient teachers, it is a tall order having universities in every county. We are trying to upgrade secondary schools. Recently, there has been a call that every county or every district must have a model school. To my amazement, today, some of these model schools have not taken off; they are still struggling. Some of them have stalled and these are the ones that will form the catchment basis of the students who otherwise would have joined or can join the same universities that you are talking about. So, let us first of all criticize the system which does not include students from one area moving to another; that is the quota system of education. This system has disadvantaged most of our students who wish to move from one region to another. So, if we are going to think about a university in every county, then we need to think about the catchment of these students and where they will come from. Going by the fact that some of the counties are disadvantaged and a mean grade of C plus is the qualification for joining universities, do we have enough students generated from the secondary schools in the county? So, for me, it would have been better to think of whether the secondary schools in those counties are equipped or not, whether primary schools have enough teachers and can generate enough students to join secondary schools so that they are translated to the universities. If that does not happen, these will be white elephant projects and at the end, we stand to lose. Therefore, I will advise that before universities are established, we need to think about how many students we are churning out from every primary school to secondary schools and how many students are moving to local universities that are available. By the way, universities can be open and it is possible to imagine that you can become a student without necessarily attending a physical university. Therefore, I am advising the Mover of the Motion, if he thinks this can be passed, to introduce various amendments so that we cannot only have a university in every county but also have quality secondary schools so that the students can move to where we have established universities. It is good to note that some of these universities are located around Nairobi. We should ask ourselves why. This is historical and we need to find out what happened during those days. I have been a teacher for a long time and I am a strong supporter of good cadres in various schools and these are the standards that we do not have now. So, if 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."
}