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    "id": 562252,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/562252/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 223,
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    "content": "In Part 2(9), it states:- “The functions and powers of the county are free primary education, village polytechnics, homecraft centres and child care facilities” When the new county governments constituted themselves, this is what they were supposed to address by composing and getting the right calibre of staff. What was taken down there was pre-primary education otherwise called ECDE and the associated facilities that normally go with it like homecare for children, village polytechnics, homecraft centres and childcare facilities. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, occasionally, there is still a lot of confusion where some county governors and their CECs think that primary and secondary education was devolved and so they are wasting a lot of their time handling this. We should recall that at that time when this Constitution was introduced, immediately after that, the Grand Coalition Government mandated Ministries to align their functions and duties to the new Constitution. That is when a commission that was headed by Dr. Douglas Odhiambo was created in the Ministry of Education to align and come up with how each of the education functions was going to be dealt with in light of the devolved functions that had gone to the counties. That document was prepared and early 2012, it was supposed to be released, but unfortunately to date – that time Prof. Ongeri was the Minister in charge and Prof. Kiyiapi was the Permanent Secretary – the document is still intact with all the proposals on how to handle all of the functions for the pre-primary, primary, secondary and university level education, so that each level of government can be able to isolate their functions in line with what had been introduced in the Constitution. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, that is why for the very first time we should thank the Senate through the Committee on Education that they have been bold enough for the last two years to work on the County Early Childhood Education Bill that is going to look at the standards and how the child can be brought up. Currently, as constituted in the national Government, we have Directors for pre-primary education and primary education, but because of the clamour to run their affairs alone, the county governors and the county governments have not had a guiding document that stipulates how each of this should be done. That is why last year, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) together with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) had issues with the county governments with regard to the employment of ECDE teachers. They thought that it was very easy to ignore the type of teacher who should be employed for the children. That type of controversy will be removed when this Bill comes into effect because it stipulates the type of training the teacher is supposed to undergo. This time round, the curriculum is going to be standardized although we also have the local languages that are supposed to be captured. I am talking about the registration of centres where the children are going to learn, what type of classroom should be built, what type of basic material should be provided as equipment, chairs, the type of food that the children in ECD should be given, the type of"
}