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{
    "id": 697863,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697863/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 274,
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    "content": "addressing education matters. We are very clear about the template and what we want to do, but somewhere along the line when it comes to implementation, we have problems. Recently, we had problems of students in schools engaging in violence, riots and extremism. This might be a reflection of the frustrations they feel. At times, the dreams they are promised are not articulated. The problem is not just with the students but it also extends to the teachers in terms of levels of training, deployments, and remuneration that led to strikes that this country faced for a long time. The gap in financing keeps coming up in various conferences. The annual financing gap is huge; it stands at US$22 billion. That means that not enough money is being adequately put into the education agenda. The proposal given in this report is that six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should go directly towards education initiatives. The idea in many of these conferences is to have a buy-in. This is because this is a Ministers’ conference and we would need our Minister to come here and say: “Look here, as a national Government, we need to ensure there is enough that is going into the education sector.” Various awards were given at this conference. Rwanda got one for innovative education. Unfortunately, Kenya did not get any award. We hope that next time we will be recognized for something. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the issue of increased participation of women and girls in education is very key. Since the future is women and the youth, we need to be able to empower them. In a cultural context we still think about the value of marriage, dowry and related issues. This creates quite a bit of a problem culturally. However, we need to have a mind-shift, so that we go back to our communities and talk to the girls and women to tell them that education is key. If we are talking about attaining leadership or the two-thirds gender representation in most of the public institutions, it has to start somewhere and education is key to this. Specific strategies have to be put into place to attain this. As we talk about women and girls, we must not forget the boy child. There is now more literature emphasizing that we should pay attention to the needs of the boy child as well. A lot of focus has gone into the needs of the girl child who is getting empowered sometimes at the detriment of the boy child who feels totally neglected. As we do that, we need to draw from two important educational components; the social and cultural capital and the family background and what families can do to enhance performance of their children at various levels. That can be dealt with appropriately. The report also deals with the issue of the curriculum. This is a major problem for us in Kenya. There has been a mismatch where curriculum reviews are often done, but the implementation seems to be a problem. This is more so for a curriculum that does not address social issues. Mr. Temporary, Speaker, Sir, early this morning we had an opportunity to be at the offices of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC). We were receiving a report on ethnicity and inequalities across the board. One of the things that came out is that there is a need to look at the curriculum and begin to introduce certain core social values of patriotism, leadership and integrity. This is key since we tend to focus on the technical and professional areas without focusing on aspects that ensure we create a balance. The United States of America has taken this as key and is performing well in this area. 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"
}