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{
    "id": 562301,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/562301/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 272,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "As it is, county governments have started constructing ECDE centers but the unfortunate thing is that those centers are also within those schools. I enquired and was told that it is the policy that the ECDE centers have to be within established schools. That does not in any way make it better for the children. It will still be available only to those who are around the school. Those who live far from the school will still not access the ECDE centers. To be fair to the parents and for them to avail their children, then an ECDE centre should not be more than a kilometre from their homes. In the case of nomadic communities, then it has to be within the village so that when the village moves, the school moves with the village. The penalty for failing to avail your child is a fine of Kshs100,000 or imprisonment for one year. I think this will only be applicable once infrastructure has been provided within reasonable range for the children to walk. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the other part is, of course, the case of parents bringing their children to school and withdrawing them. This is very common in the pastoralist areas. A child is brought when they are young, and when they are old enough to look after the animals, they are taken out of school. This punitive measure of making sure that parents do not withdraw their children is also very necessary as much as the penalties may be much beyond what Kenyans in those parts of the world can afford – a fine of Kshs500,000 or two years imprisonment. That needs to be checked. It must be something which is not very prohibitive. However, once the infrastructure has been provided, I think parents will also feel that they are keeping away their children from available facilities. The other part of the Bill takes care of children with special needs. This is something which has not been there before. You will find that the ECDE facilities that are being constructed across counties are standard and do not take into account children with physical disabilities like blindness and hearing impairment. The system is tailored for a normal child. The Bill now puts a structural responsibility on county governments to provide these facilities for all children to benefit right from the beginning. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the part that I would like to mention which this Bill brings out and which also brings in a part of this country which has been left out is the mobile schools especially for the pastoral communities. Last weekend, I went round some parts of my county with the Governor and some Members of Parliament. We went to two mobile communities and one of the requests that they put to us was a mobile school facility. This is because they have children all over the village and the county government has employed teachers but the children have nowhere to learn. That makes it necessary that provision of mobile schools should be clearly entrenched in this Bill. That way, county governments will know very well that these schools are very necessary. It is not only the ECDE centres but even as the same children grow, they still need to have lower primary mobile schools until they reach a point where they can move to a boarding school. That is if it will be difficult to move along with the family. That is the only way that we can reduce illiteracy rates in some parts of this country. It is impossible to say that education is free and compulsory when the"
}