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"content": "I want us to obligate head teachers of schools with strict timelines, that immediately after the exam results are announced, the result slips of students should be in schools within two weeks. Those result slips should then be released to the students within another two weeks. Two months after the announcement of the outcome of examination results, the certificates must be in the schools where students sat examinations. Those certificates must be released unconditionally to the student who sat for the examination within a month of their receipt in school. That way, there will be no excuse for KNEC to say that they are still holding the certificates and doing this and that. They are obligated as soon as they announce the results, within two weeks, the result slips must be in schools and within two months, the certificates must be in all schools. Madam Temporary Speaker, I do not want these Sub-County Directors of Education to be involved because it is always a sense of pride for a head teacher to hand over certificates to his or her own students, especially when the school has done very well. It is even normally a public event. Many schools will even invite us, as leaders, to go and witness the handing over of certificates to these students. So, the event should be school based because that is the venue where everything has occurred in the life of a student. Education officers will be adding very little value to this. In fact, they have been part of the problem in some of these difficulties that Sen. Musila is trying to resolve. I also agree that there must be penal sanctions for those who do not release these certificates. The fine proposed in Clause 45(a)(8) is a bit too harsh for school teachers. A teacher who fails to release a certificate, as you saw when we were discussing teachers’ salaries, and the highest paid school teacher in top schools like Alliance and Mang’u High Schools, is just Kshs109,000. That is how unfair this Jubilee regime has been to teachers. So, to fine Kshs800,000 – I have been a magistrate before – the courts will be tempted to think that if the fine is Kshs800,000, even fining half of it is fair. You can imagine fining a head teacher Kshs400,000 with an alternative of an imprisonment of one year or both. One year is not too harsh, but still it then obligates the teacher, for fear of the unknown, to release the certificates. Madam Temporary Speaker, I propose that Sen. Musila considers reducing the fine. None of those teachers even the headteacher of Alliance High School can afford a fine of Kshs100,000. If you can reduce it to, say, between Kshs100,000 to Kshs150,000, that would be commensurate with the offence that we are trying to deal with, so that the head teachers can be driven into knowing that as and when such a situation occurs, there are severe consequences. I would also want Sen. Musila to bring in a clause about the Government having committed itself to free universal education because we must also look at the welfare of schools. Schools without money will collapse. We must obligate the Government that when these certificates are released- again Sen. Musila can put a clause,- that the Government must meet the cost of that certificate. In school, there is the fee and there is the examinations fee. The withholding of the release of the certificate as we want to cure now must be pegged on the examinations fees. Madam Temporary Speaker, for the school to release the certificate, the Government is obligated to compensate the school within a specified period, not more than two months. If they have released 1,000 certificates to their students and each is Kshs1,000, they expect the Government to send them a cheque of Kshs1 million immediately so that the school can function. It is the duty of the Government to look after its people. We cannot pretend that we are giving free education by sending Kshs10,000 to school, when we cannot pay Kshs1,000 to 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."
}