{"id":622051,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/622051/?format=json","text_counter":301,"type":"other","speaker_name":"","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"year, there are schools whose results are cancelled. This tribunal will check on this regular trend so that the recommendations can be used to deter cheating in other schools. With time, the tribunal will determine the cheating trends in institutions or among the students and use them to curb future possible examination malpractices. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, our education system is result-oriented. Pressure is mounted on students to score high marks without minding what the input is. Debate has been on the rise about the nature of our education curriculum. We have also had many task forces, but over time, we should relook at what we want our children to be. There are some art subjects which have been abolished from schools. More focus has been placed on sciences yet there are some children who otherwise would benefit from skills in art subjects. When children are out of schools, it is not about getting white-collar jobs but learning arts is a way of nurturing talent. The Bill is timely considering what happened last year. It was an embarrassment. In fact, we deliberated the issue in this House about how the examination leaked. We recommended that a whip should be cracked on the KNEC because they are ruining children’s lives. Internationally, our education is undermined when such issues arise. Doubt is already built on the merit of the children who sat their national examinations last year. Once we have the tribunal, there will be guidelines that will curb any recurrence. In the meantime, we should get to the root of this and establish where the gaps that lead to leakage of examinations exist. Those who practice this malpractice should know they are doing a disservice to the children because they are not benefitting them in any way or improving a child’s life. If anything, they are messing their lives. You may give a child an examination paper and they go ahead to score a mean grade A. They will be called to a national school but they cannot fit in. They will be miserable for the next four or five years they will be in that school. Such children are called to join some good universities here in Kenya and that is why we see them dropping out. Students end up doing very many supplementary examinations because they cannot cope since that was not a true reflection of their Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Many times we have talked here about focusing so much on results. I have seen many counties put aside money for polytechnics. I really hope that we can actually do that for the sake of our children, our young people and communities so that we shift a little bit of focus which has been concentrated on a results-oriented education system. Secondly, I agree that we now have a very good Cabinet Secretary, Mr. Matiang’i. I have interacted with him and discovered that he is very passionate on issues to do with education. I even wonder what he has been doing elsewhere. He should have been at the Ministry of Education from the beginning to help the sector. We saw him walk to schools to check on the teachers and find out what goes on. I like what he said and I will quote it. He said that it is not about how clean a school is. We have had the assumption of making students to clean the school compound thoroughly. However, the most important thing is what goes on inside our learning institutions. The CS visits schools and finds that some teachers are absent and the principal does not know where they are. As Sen. Elachi said, corruption is not necessarily just about the money. It is also about the time we take away from our children by not being there for them. That is also The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"}