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{
    "id": 697848,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697848/?format=api",
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    "content": "seen the light of the day. I am further pleased to read that this conference is the largest in the entire Commonwealth. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I want to congratulate the founding fathers of this idea in 1959. When they did so, they have told us in this Report that they came up with Commonwealth scholarships and fellowship plans. I know many lecturers who taught me at the School of Medicine in the University of Nairobi, including the late Prof. Maina Mungai who was not only the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, but was also the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, was a beneficiary of this programme. As an old boy of the University of Nairobi, you remember Prof. Arthur Obel, a good teacher in Pharmacology in Medicine. They were the beneficiaries of this programme. Without this thinking maybe some of us who were completely humble in beginning in life would not have enjoyed the privilege of having been taught by such eminent lectures as exemplified by the two that I have referred to. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I decry this Report when it says that at the moment we still have 20 million primary school aged children who are out of school in Commonwealth countries. It is a pity that Kenya has got a huge contribution to these 20 million children in the Commonwealth. This is what we should be talking about in this House, the National Assembly and, indeed, should be the driving force of the agenda of the Jubilee Government. These 20 million children obviously from peasantry families are out of schools. Let us think of the children from Kakamega, not to mention Kuria and everywhere, their only crime is that they found themselves trapped in poverty because they were born in poverty. Simple things make them drop out of schools. For example, a little girl who is in Class Six who was bought her last uniform when she was in Class Four has been using it for two years and it has since gotten torn around the buttocks. When she walks on the road side, she cover her buttocks with the books so that you do not realise that the dress where she sits has since become torn because she has used it for two years. When the breasts of this little girl start coming out and she is starting to realise she is a young woman, the woman in her tells her that you cannot afford to look like this and she just drops out of school. These are the things that the Government should address. Government should offer free uniform to our children if it is a functioning Government. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the Report sadly tells us that we have 460 million adults in the Commonwealth who are illiterate. What became of adult education in this country? These are the thoughts that a thinking Government should be driven by instead of being driven by the ideals of tender entrepreneurship, which is known to be the Jubilee way of thinking. When I go through the Report I note on page 16 the contribution by key speakers. There was a key speaker there called Mr. Kamlesh Shamah, the Secretary General of this particular organisation and he had key highlights worth mentioning. Allow me to just speak to one highlight from the Secretary General. He said in paragraph 2.1.3(I) as follows: “That Commonwealth Education Hub launched so to digitalise and multiply convening power in contemporary ways in realising the potential of communications technology so as to bind Commonwealth Education into a closer and more interactive 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"
}