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{
    "id": 686383,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/686383/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 129,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ababu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 108,
        "legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
        "slug": "ababu-namwamba"
    },
    "content": "I was in Dubai a few months back and it was very interesting that, other than merely having a city that is a magnet for tourism and investment, this is a city state that has set aside a whole zone for intellectual exploration and exploitation, an almost academic city within a city. You go to places like Hyderabad in India, what is called the Technocity of India and you see a country that has deliberately invested in learning as a means of triggering economic growth. In places like Boston in Massachusetts, universities like Harvard or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and how they are linked to Silicon Valley and other production drivers of the American economy, you see a very clear link between education, higher learning and economic growth. So, my challenge to our universities is to take advantage of this kind of legislation so that we can invest more resources in research and programmes that are geared towards our strategic economic objectives. There is no need to open every campus all over the place and every campus is offering Education, Arts and the usual stuff. Let us be innovative that even as we expand our institutions of our higher learning, we also go into innovative programmes. I have had the privilege to develop a university campus back in my constituency of Budalang’i. Among the things we are doing at that new campus in collaboration with Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) together with the Nagoya University of Japan (NUJ) is to develop programmes that can take advantage of the unique location of Budalang’i within the Lake Victoria belt. Those like Marine Science and Water Technology programmes that respond not only to the immediate needs of the community, but are also in line with the ultimate long term strategic economic goals of the country. My final submission on this Bill is on the university politics. I am a product of university student politics, having been a student leader at the University of Nairobi (UoN). I know the challenges that have creeped into university student politics. Today, politics at the university is very much reflective of the ordinary political complexion of our general society. There is a lot of ethnicity that defines student politics. There is a lot of interference in student bodies by the university administration and in so far as this amendment would seek to improve the general environment of student leadership, it has to be supported. It is untenable to turn our universities into breeding grounds for negative ethnicity, violence and all vices that ultimately define our politics in this country. At the same time, let us also not seek to be too controlling because the Constitution in this country provides certain guarantees in the Bill of Rights. So, as we pass legislation to improve and respond to some mischief or challenges within student leadership, it must be done in a manner that is in consonance with the Bill of Rights and that allows students in this country to conduct their politics and leadership issues freely and without undue control. I want to rebuke those universities whose administration plays a prominent role in interfering in the free expression of the will of students who are members of their various unions. As university administration, your role is limited to facilitating operations of those student unions and providing a conducive atmosphere within which students can lead and participate in the activities of their unions. If you reduce yourself to micro-managing the affairs of student unions, you want to determine who can get elected and who cannot get elected as university administration. That is unacceptable. I agree that we cannot turn universities into an arena where some students become professional students, where you do not cease being a student and a student leader. That is a matter that is also untenable. Ultimately, I challenge our students and universities to make student politics a true breeding ground for national leaders, persons who upon exiting universities and student leadership, can proudly join the league of national leaders and contribute"
}