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{
    "id": 571081,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/571081/?format=api",
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    "content": "which we, later on, started calling national schools. However, before Independence, they were the only secondary schools. Areas which were well endowed started doing harambees to build secondary schools all over the place. The Government – let me give credit where it is due – did a good job of sending teachers wherever schools were established. In due course, the Government took over the secondary schools which were started through harambees or whichever way as long as they were public schools. The disaster was that areas where economies were not well endowed, people were unable to come together and raise funds to build secondary schools. Even today, they still have a very raw deal. We then started pieces of devolution like Constituency Development Fund (CDF) where public money could be used to start new secondary schools and now we have good devolution where good money is going to counties. However, if you look at it, the less endowed counties still suffer. Madam Temporary Speaker, the essence of this Motion is to require the Government to facilitate and see to it that each county has a university and not just any university. The CUE should liaise with county governments to ensure that what happens there is in keeping with universities anywhere else. At the moment, if we are not careful, we shall end up in a situation where we have 28 or more universities, we will start rating degrees according to which university it was obtained from. This means that we have already allowed such a serious disparity that employers are already looking at which university is which. If we follow what is proposed by Sen. Halima, whereas it is not easy or possible for all of them to be completely equal, at least we shall have separation of standards so that we have a certain minimum that everyone is maintaining. As I said, counties which are well endowed already have many universities. Others do not know what to do until the Government comes in. The universities are also giving us a raw deal as a nation. At Independence, we did not have even one university in Kenya. We only had one that was called the University of East Africa with campuses in Nairobi, Makerere in Uganda and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. There was no university anywhere in Kenya. When it started, obviously things started rolling and, it was after 20 years that Moi University came along. Madam Temporary Speaker, before Independence, those universities were specialised. If you wanted to do medicine, you went to Makerere. For engineering, you went to the University of Nairobi University (UoN) and for law, you went to Dar-es- Salaam. For many years we knew that for biological sciences and agriculture, you went to Egerton University. However, if you go to Egerton University today, they are doing everything like everybody else. When Moi University started, it also had a number of technical courses that they were doing, but now they want to do everything. I think the CUE in liaison with Parliament should look at whether it is wise to start a university in every corner, none of which specializes in anything. It is about time we introduced a system of specialization. If we are to have a medical college everywhere and we require the same doctors who will be lecturers to also man our Level 5 and 4 hospitals in the counties, we simply do not have enough. It is time we started thinking of how we can have specialized universities. That can only be directed through a national policy. 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."
}