{"id":686451,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/686451/?format=json","text_counter":197,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. J.K. Chege","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":2129,"legal_name":"John Kiragu Chege","slug":"john-kiragu-chege"},"content":"Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for giving me an opportunity to add my voice to this very important Bill. This Bill is very timely. We are living at a time when there are a lot challenges in university education in this country. As engineers, some of us have had a time to reflect and even go back to the colleges that we went through, like the University of Nairobi, to look at the accommodation and laboratories that our students currently use. We found out that, as much as this country is moving ahead, we have forgotten to invest enough in our universities. If you go to the universities, you will find that most of the equipment that our students use has been donated by other universities from overseas. Instead of dumping them in the sea, they bring the equipment here. You start worrying about where we are taking our country. This country needs to look at the issue of quality university education. We must invest in research and development. We cannot allow our best brains to leave Kenya and start teaching other universities abroad. They leave this country because the number of students per class is much higher than what you find in high school. The facilities that are available cannot be shared properly for quality education. We need to make sure that those people who teach at the university can do so and also do research instead of moving from one university to another looking for extra money, because they cannot survive on teaching in one college alone. We know the role of polytechnics, particularly Kenya Polytechnic as it was and Mombasa Polytechnic. They used to be very key institutions in supporting university education. They would learn in the university and when they needed practical work, they would go to those other colleges for practical attachments. We converted some of those institutions into universities. In this country, at the university level, we do not have qualified technicians to support university teaching because we have forgotten the role the technicians play. We have taken over those institutions that used to be for---"}