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    "id": 697852,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697852/?format=api",
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    "content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, allow me to reflect on the issue of education for all. Sen. (Dr.) Machage, we share a bit of parliamentary history with you. You will recall when we defeated the Moi project in 2002 and President Kibaki took office. In the first months after President Kibaki became President, you were in power as a Minister while I was an assistant Minister. You will remember that over 1,000,000 children reported to school because President Kibaki drove the agenda of education for all. Compare that to what happened when President Uhuru came into the power. Three months after being in power he had closed down all the schools because teachers were asking for a pay increment. As President Uhuru goes into retirement next year, I want him to note that he has set a history that will be difficult to beat. He is the first President in the Commonwealth to close down all public schools. Even Idi Amin in Uganda never closed Ugandan schools. We need to rediscover the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) spirit that got over 1,000,000 children back to school after President Kibaki took over power because he gave free primary education. Due to the corruption in this country, the free primary education - which to me was the greatest legacy that President Kibaki left this country- has now been demonized to the extent that in Iloro Primary School in Shinyalu, where there is supposed to be free primary education, you will always meet children in the morning because they are told that they cannot be admitted to the school if they do not bring new desks. They are also asked to go home and bring Kshs20 to buy ingredients for making tea for the teachers. This goes on until the little levies – some that are completely illegal - that are charged on the parents have made the current free primary education to become more expensive than when we had paid-for primary school education. We need to rethink these things because when great people, like the current Chair, recounts to me the kind of hills that he had to climb and the valleys that he survived to reach to the top, given where he comes from, is truly a big story of how education is an equalizer. I am pained in my heart that these children are not being given a chance to go to school. If I had not gone to school at that time, I would not be addressing the nation today, because my mother was a chang’aa brewer. Through the proceedings of chang’aa brewing, things were manageable and we made it through life. We want children like me to have an opportunity, 30 years from now, to address the nation with pride that education is indeed a social equalizer."
}