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{
    "id": 697861,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697861/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 272,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "When we talk matters education, we are talking about the quality of the education, performance, delivery mechanisms and productivity; all that within a context of inequality. That is where the problem is. Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale talked about a chance; that he from a very humble background is able to come to where he is; that is a context of education allowing you to do that. Unfortunately, that does not happen a lot. Therefore, the issue of social reproduction and alignments and ensuring that, over time children who come from poor families get to school, does not get properly addressed. In Kenya, for example, over time - from the 1960s - there has been modernization, improvement and drastic expansion of education. Whether it is in terms of the number of schools, the number of pupils or attainment, the graph systematically goes up. For instance, in the cohort analysis from the census report, that development is very clear. However, the story therein, is that of inequalities. The level of inequalities has not changed. Therefore, as that modernization is taking place, inequalities are still contained. This is what the Commonwealth Ministers were trying to address. This is a problem that exists in many countries. In Kenya we still need to do a lot to comprehensively address it. In terms of the education system, there is a difference in the quality of education when it comes to private schools versus public schools. There is always a debate about most of the students who go to secondary schools being form private schools. That debate has escalated now to the universities where we have Module I and Module II students. You will find that a student who attains a mean grade of B in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) can pursue Medicine under the Parallel Programme, whereas another who attains a mean grade of A cannot pursue the same course under the regular programme. Of course there is a reason for the Module II; they add value. However, we need to address some issues so that we can ensure that the right person gets to the right place. There are reports of students whose positions in national schools are taken because rich parents can buy them. That needs to be addressed. However, the most alarming bit about the report is the global figure of 20 million children who are out school at both primary and the secondary level. This is such a huge number. Even before we recover from this shocker, there is another shocker that there are 460 million illiterate adults. These are people who cannot read, write or even articulate information. That is such a large number. I am sure that quite a number of them come from the developing nations. This means that the development capacity is interfered with. All these indicators are always correlated, say, in terms of development and corruption. The higher the levels of education the better all you other indicators are, including economic indicators which are very critical. We need to figure out how to solve this and how to make it better. Various recommendations are given in this report, including enhancing teachers’ performance and ensuring that they are actually ICT- proficient. In this report the target is not only the students, but also the teachers. That brings me to the issue of the fate of the laptops project. These laptops might be distributed four years into the term of the current Government. As they seek re- election, which promises have been attained? When you look at the issue of the economy, the promise of a double digit growth has not happened. We are still at 5.7 economic growth rate. We had the last three years to implement the laptops project yet these laptops might come the very last minute. This resembles the sort of mediocrity in 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"
}