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{
    "id": 686391,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/686391/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 137,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Dawood",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2572,
        "legal_name": "Abdul Rahim Dawood",
        "slug": "abdul-rahim-dawood"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I want to support this Bill. In this Bill, there is conflict with other Acts in approval of programmes. If you notice, we have had many courses which are offered by our universities. Some of them lack accreditation from statutory bodies. For example, there was a time when some students who had done engineering degrees were not recognised by the Board of Engineers and they had a problem in getting accreditation. So, with this one, I think we would have solved part of the problems. Clause 6 of the Bill is about protection from liability. It is a good thing that the officers who are working in the Commission will be protected from whatever they are doing in the course of their work. However, if we have rogue officers who purport to do things in the name of the Commission, that will not be right. We need to separate rogue officers. We need to see how we can go about it. We have provisions where we have many arts course which are being provided by most of our universities, as the previous speaker has already said. We are not concentrating on what needs to be done and which courses need to be offered. I believe with this amendment, the Commission will specify how many arts courses we can offer or limit them. This is because we need to go into the science subjects because if we do not do any research and design courses, then I do not think we will go very far as a country. We need to go forward in science and technology as well. Regarding the variation of the charter in this Bill, that is a good idea. We need to encourage them. If some universities have been given charters and are not fulfilling what they are supposed to do, then the charter needs to be removed and they are disqualified or shut down as it has been proposed in the Bill. There is the issue of students’ elections and councils. Very often, we have students’ elections and Members of Parliament are told that students from their areas want to become chairmen, secretaries or hold other posts. We should delink students’ elections from ethnicity"
}