HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 594957,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/594957/?format=api",
"text_counter": 226,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I have met former students of secondary schools who are now old men and have never seen their certificates. Some of them got As and Bs but they could not go for higher education because they had no certificates. Some of them are orphans. I have met ladies who finished Form Four, waited to get their certificates but never got them and so they never went to any college. They got married and now they cannot show their children that they ever went to school. When one of them heard that I was spearheading this issue of certificates, she congratulated me about it and I said, but you do not need it because you are already married. She said: “No, I need this certificate. I need to prove to my children that I went to school.” Madam Temporary Speaker, some say that people do not collect certificates because they do not want them or because they do not just want to pay fees arrears. Let me tell you that there is poverty in this country. Some of the fees have accumulated to thousands of shillings. The parents who are being asked to pay, say Kshs20,000 or Kshs30,000 for their children to get a certificate, have never seen a Kshs1,000 with their own eyes. Madam Temporary Speaker, are we being fair to the children from the poor background by taking them through education system, at the end of the day, they do examinations, but we withhold their certificates? After doing their examination, we only tell them thank you very much, you were very clever, but we are very sorry we are keeping the certificate here because your parents have not paid fees. By the way, those from very poor families are very clever. Madam Temporary Speaker, I have been to a school and I can name it because I used to be the Chairman of the Board. It is called Miguani High School. It is in my former constituency. I went there and I saw huge cartons collecting dust and I asked the Principal what they contained. He said they were certificates of children, some dating as far back as 10 years ago. The Principal is doing nothing with them. They are not useful to the school, but he told me he cannot release them until he is paid. I can tell you some of those certificates have been there for decades and the owners have forgotten about them. They will never collect them. If the schools are owed money and if they hoped to collect money from those certificates, they are wasting their time. Madam Temporary Speaker, as a responsible country and government, why do we not put a stop to this? I know in future the Government intends to make secondary school education free. Why? It is because the Government realizes the poverty and the suffering that the parents go through. These are not many certificates. Why are we depriving our students or our children opportunities to go for further education or even to get jobs because of a few shillings? We have heard the President announcing the writing off of Agricultural Finance Corporation loans (AFC), coffee loans and all kinds of loans of people who otherwise are able to pay those loans. What about these poor children who went to school innocently and their parents in good faith agreed with the Principals that they will pay? All the Principals had mercy and allowed the child to finish. Finally, the child languishes in poverty. The same poverty that the child inherited from the father and the mother is continuing in that family. When are we going to eradicate that poverty from that family if we continue to withhold these certificates? Madam Temporary Speaker, I will be pleading with the House that we pass this Bill, and I will be welcoming proposals for amendments. I, for one, will be proposing some two or three amendments when we come to the Committee Stage to make it workable. If you feel that there is a clause that is not workable, you are all welcome to bring in proposals for amendments when we come to the Committee Stage. However, for goodness sake, I plead, that by the grace of God, I have been around to carry out this thing through since 2004 till now, consistently. 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."
}