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{
    "id": 839608,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/839608/?format=api",
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    "content": "function according to Schedule Four of the Constitution. Being a devolved function, we need to ask ourselves who are supposed to be in those areas in order to determine how many centres we should have in a county. As we speak, nationally, the number of students who transit from primary to secondary school is only about 60 per cent. There is hope that one day, we will transition all our children to secondary school but it has not been possible. This is because even the secondary schools in a locality are only about 50 per cent of the primary schools. This tells us that there are a number of students who finish Class Eight and fizzle out into nowhere. These are the people we must skill and re-tool, so that they can go out and fend for themselves. It is, therefore, extremely important that we establish more polytechnics and vocational training centers in our counties, under the devolved government, so that our youth can go somewhere. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the change that we saw in Mugundoi tells us that there are many youth out there, who would not have gone anywhere before the encouragement came. The kind of campaign that we have done in Uasin Gishu in the last one year, encouraging the youth to go for vocational training, has been massive. We have visited our Technical Training Institutes (TTIs) and held meetings with parents. We have also visited our youth polytechnics and vocational training centres and talked to parents, and that campaign has yielded what we saw today. We are seeing more youths going to vocational training centres. That tells us – which should worry us – that there are many more youth out there, who have not gotten any opportunity. We also have girls who got married at a young age. There are young mothers who got married without any skills and cannot fend for themselves. This is the target group that we are also interested in. We are also interested in even our young men, who do not have any skills. If we can skill these young people in Kenya, we will be able to change not only the culture of unemployment, but also bring the much needed income to the families. Mr. Speaker, Sir, one of the reasons we must encourage them now - and I want to thank the Government for sponsoring TTI and polytechnic students - is the fact that we are going for housing, under the Big Four Agenda. If we are going for housing and do not have enough plumbers, masons and electricians, who is will do the work? We do not want to go into Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with a company that might decide to bring employees from elsewhere. We have been talking of a worrying trend, where in most of the areas where we have allocated jobs to Chinese contractors, they have used the excuse that there are no technically qualified people. They, therefore, bring the Chinese people to work in Kenya. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if we increase the number of youth polytechnics, we should be able to absorb more youth. My plea is that in this country we should have a vocational training centre for every four primary schools. This is because we cannot afford to have secondary schools absorb all of them. In my estimation if you talk of every four, the minimum would be at the locational level. In some cases, it should be at the sub- locational level. It is very important that we actually encourage our governors to divert more resources to save us in the area of unemployment and skilling of our youth. The only way they can do that is to create more vocational training centers. 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."
}