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"content": "release the certificate. This is because the certificate is not generated in the school; it is not the property of the school. In fact, it is the property of the candidate, transmitted from KNEC only via the school. Madam Temporary Speaker, the school does not own any certificate. The only certificate the school gives to a student is the school leaving certificate which is normally free. So, we must obligate that examination money covers also the certificate. If the Government meets that, and we must obligate them to meet it - there is no point in sharpening a student through school for four years- because if they are day scholars, they will be able to go through school at that Kshs12,000 per annum. If the Government can pay that, I cannot understand how we cannot pay Kshs1,000 for examinations which covers the process of examination. If they are paying, then if there is any charge to the certificate, it should not be tied to whether a student has paid his fees or not, because that is not an examination of the school. The school does not set the examinations, it does not invigilate, it does not mark and it does not grade the students. So, on what basis would they hang on the certificates of the students? There is no basis whatsoever. Madam Temporary Speaker, the school is simply a conveyer belt, a centre where a student has to come and pick their certificates. As we say this, a lot of young Kenyans have suffered. Many have lost opportunities and many things in life. We are in a country and in a system where a certificate is everything. You can be as clever as Isaac Newton, as clever as Einstein, but if at the end of the day, you do not have the certificate, you are nothing. You cannot go and compete for a job, you have seen a lot of people who even hire lecturers to sit for exams for them and give them distinctions, and they go and get jobs which they cannot even do because of the sanctity of the certificate. Madam Temporary Speaker, to withhold a certificate from a candidate is like telling you all your four years in school have come to a dead end. It is like a student who goes to the university to study engineering and after four or five years, he gets no certificate. Therefore, he cannot go and look for a job and say he studied engineering for four years and he be given a job. Nobody will listen to him. He must produce a certificate. When they are recruiting people to go to the army, even a certificate of Grade D plain gets one a job. The basic askaris in the army are being recruited at Grade D level. To some people, Grade D looks like a failure, but it gets one a job in the army and the police. So, when a school tells you that you cannot have your certificate, it is like taking life out of you. You wasted your time, you mark-timed in school, and you go back to start life from where you were when you went to Form One. Madam Temporary Speaker, I hope that KNEC will cooperate with this law. In fact, in the penal clauses, we should have a penal sanction for KNEC if they do not send the certificates within the two months that we have suggested so that they do not procrastinate on issues and say that it is only the school head teacher who will go to jail for it, as they have nothing to do with it. At times, KNEC sits on certificates up to a year. They must have an obligation and duty to release the certificates as quickly as it is practically possible in any case and not later than two months as we have said, with clear penalties where there is a default. The person to go for in KNEC is not the junior clerks, but the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He must be the culpable person in the event of failure. Madam Temporary Speaker, we also need to have a clause to cure another common problem: Students suffer when the KNEC releases certificate with misprinted names or 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."
}