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{
"id": 92873,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/92873/?format=api",
"text_counter": 236,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Prof. Ongeri",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Education",
"speaker": {
"id": 124,
"legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
"slug": "samson-ongeri"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to sincerely thank the hon. Members for their exposition and very hearty felicitations and congratulations they have given my officers for work which I think they have done very well under very difficult circumstances. I want to record my thanks to the Departmental Committee on Education, Research and Technology. We had very fruitful discussions with them on a regular basis, addressing emerging issues in the area of education. One that clearly stands out here today and is a major concern for us is the question of ECD. You all know that under the Education for All Programme and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we are supposed to be mainstreaming ECD into the primary education programme. At any rate, in the Sessional Paper No.1 of 2005 in the sector policy, it was envisaged that by January of this financial year, we should have been able to recruit the managers for the ECD, but we did not have money factored in the budget. When we made our presentation to the Treasury, we actually requested Kshs1.6 billion to be able to address that critical need that hon. Members have already pointed out. We were given close to Kshs225million which can hardly scratch on the surface. We have not stopped there. As a Ministry, we have engaged Treasury and brought out this clearly in a session with them. We pointed it out to them that this is an area of concern for us. If we have to achieve education for all by 2015, then we need to mainstream ECD in the main programme. The Treasury was understanding and favourable. I hope that with your support and comments from the Floor, we should be able to pressurize them to include it in the Supplementary Estimates so that these teachers can truly take their rightful place and streamline and pilot this programme to the future. On the question of school audit, I agree with you that it has been problematic. Somebody made a suggestion that we should be sending external auditors. Indeed, we have sent them to do fiduciary audit in about 3,000 schools. That way, we will be able to sample out what is happening with regard to audit in schools. We are already devolving a lot of resources at the school level. Therefore, the school management committees and the Boards of Governors need to be abreast with the resources available at that local level. The school audit teams also need to be abreast with resources now being devolved to that level. It is going to become even more critical when we embrace this new Constitution at the county level. We have already put everything in gear. I have already instructed my officers to work out the modalities on how we are going to generate a system that will cover everybody down the line. However, for now, we are doing a fiduciary audit in about 3,000 schools countrywide to be able to get a feel of what is happening and asses the level of the problem we are dealing with. On the question of capacity building for headteachers and the principals of our schools, yes, indeed, we have established the Kenya Education Staff Institute. Under the budget that I presented before you, they have been given a fairly reasonable amount of money. I launched the council last week. They are already creating capacity and training headteachers and principals in order to be able to cope with the situation. There is one area in which Parliament will participate fully; this is the fact that we now need to amend the Education Act and put it in line with the new Constitution. When that is done, one of the areas that we must address is the calibre of the school management committees and the period they are required to be in those schools. At the moment, the turnover is too high and they can hardly own responsibility in those schools and yet we are sending so many resources to these institutions. Therefore, it is an area that requires to be looked at. I agree with hon. Koech. Indeed, we shall have a stakeholders meeting because there is need now to look at the legal framework in order to align all the Acts of Parliament, the current and the future Bills, so that they are in harmony with the current Constitution. It is more the case now that we realize that we will now have educational programmes in the counties. It is an inevitable state that will not only require that we first of all assemble the facts, figures and policies and make them right, but also share that with the stakeholders so that we can refine and fine-tune the policy before it comes here either as a Sessional paper or a Bill for deliberation. There is the question of computers. With regard to the rationale for hiring 66 primary school teachers and 20 secondary school teachers for every constituency, you will appreciate that if we did not do that, the first problem would have arisen from this House. All of you were saying that you want equity. At the beginning we suggested that there be the greatest need. As of now, we know the statistics; we have the figures. Right now, the biggest deficit of teachers is in Nyanza Province. That is a fact. What hon. Millie Odhiambo is saying is correct. If we were to realign these teachers, the next story I would hear is that the Minister of Education comes from Nyanza Province and so he has taken everybody to that province. We should be able to target this kind of deficit in the next round. The biggest deficit is in Nyanza Province followed by Rift Valley Province, Central Province and Eastern Province, in that order. Therefore, we really, of necessity, need to address this issue. But let me ask the hon. Members to take comfort in the fact that if a particular given area cannot absorb the 66 teachers in the primary schools and 20 teachers in secondary schools, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), being a central employer, will be able to allocate those chances to the respective areas where there is need, like hon. Musila raised that issue initially."
}