Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 677741,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/677741/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 343,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Last time I stood here and said that we are going to lose this generation of the youth if they are not checked. There is a lot of damage going on. We can now see what is going on. Waking up, deciding to burn anything even if it is your exercise or note book, is a serious thing. For you to want to destroy your own and your colleagues personal belongings, books, beddings and going ahead to burn the library is very serious. We know how parents have suffered for many years. For many years, parents have always contributed funds for building schools. The children of parents who cannot afford to get the money are denied access to the schools. I am thinking about the people in the rural areas who invest all their money in their children only for schools to be burnt later. I have seen some selling all their cows, chicken and even household goods. They do not even know how it feels to listen to a radio. They sell their property so that they can buy their children books and other items to go to school. As much as we are talking of free education, it is not free per se . We know that there is still some fee and money that has to be spent and the parents have to look for it. After going through all that thorough investment, we see what happens when schools are being burnt. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this is psychological torture to the children. We need to find out what is it that is going on in the minds of the children. As the police invest in investigations and security, they must start finding out what is going on in this country. We saw what happened during the Post-Election Violence (PEV) in 2007/2008. Very many children and even adults were, and still are, traumatised to date. Many of them cried for many nights because of seeing a lot of fire and people dying. Some time back, about 68 children in a school in Machakos were burnt to death. If we do not watch out, this is where we are headed. To me, it is more of a criminal activity. It is very criminal in that anyone who has an intention to destroy anything--- I do not know whether it is evidence that is being destroyed by the schools. If a bursar’s office and the administration block are burnt, what does that mean? The Ministry of Education should come out very clearly and tell us because after getting involved in this for so long, they must be having a clue. Keeping quiet and trying to hide things will make matters worse. Just the other day, some legislators were being arrested and accused of destroying evidence. If some people, whether teachers or bursars know that they made a mistake, it is always good to own up and say you know you have erred, but you are ready and willing to correct it. You should correct the situation instead of trying to destroy evidence. We need to know whether it is criminals or the Al Shabaabs who have joined schools or if it is the radicalisation of children because we have had cases of children disappearing. If we do not watch it, they will soon start burning our homes, churches and even this Parliament. So, this is something that has to be controlled and stopped at the beginning. We know there are times parents also have a problem. When there is a problem between couples, what they do is to throw the children to boarding schools without preparing them psychologically. These are children who are used to hostile environments or violence in the home, but nothing has been done. As they invest a lot in security, every school must have serious cancelling sessions. They need serious professional counselors 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"
}