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{
    "id": 945887,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/945887/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 212,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Siaya CWR, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Christine Ombaka",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1007,
        "legal_name": "Christine Oduor Ombaka",
        "slug": "christine-oduor-ombaka"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. First of all, I want to appreciate the Member who has brought this Motion, Mheshimiwa John Munene. 100 per cent transition is in line with the right to education for everybody in this country. Everybody has a right to access education, retention and completion of education. So, this is a move in the right direction. I believe that when you talk of 100 per cent transition, we need to start much earlier than secondary school to university. We need to start from ECD classes. The students that join ECD classes must all move to primary schools. Nobody should drop out. From primary, they should move to secondary schools all of them and from secondary schools to universities. That means there will be no dropout cases as we have always seen. Students normally drop out of school because of lack of school fees or they are not motivated enough to continue. Early marriages are always a problem to young girls. If we insist on 100 per cent transition, we shall save the lives of those who drop out of school too early. So, I can see a situation where dropping out of school is going to be minimised or it will never be there at all. That is because the coming of this Bill into a law will ensure that everybody transits to the next level. That is the best part of this. Everybody will be able to access education at every level and they will be useful to the society. A nation that does not go to school is one that is behind in development. So, this is the way Kenya will ensure that education works and everybody enjoys the benefits of education. I really appreciate that. The challenge I see, however, is that, if we put 100 per cent transition as a compulsory requirement, we also need to do other things to make it work 100 per cent. We must make sure that we have technical schools built on time. Certain constituencies have technical colleges. They have already been built and are functioning and students are in classes. Some constituencies still are looking for land; they still have got no money and have not put up colleges. We need to put timelines. When are we going to have technical colleges? When are we going to have medical colleges so that our students transiting from secondary schools will have access to colleges? That is very important. We must put in place colleges on time. And we must have timelines so that every child in every constituency will have access to technical colleges to get the education or skills that are required. The second thing that we need to ensure so that 100 per cent transition works is that we need to put money in place for many students who cannot make it to colleges. They pass exams, want to transit to secondary or to university, but they do not have a single cent to go to college. That is why we need to allocate more funds for bursaries that I see the NG-CDF is doing very well in. More money needs to be allocated to CDF to educate children. Women representatives have the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF) as well, and there is some little amount for bursaries. It is far too little. I would like to ask this House in the next Budget to consider allocating more money to NGAAF and CDF for bursaries, so that 100 per cent transition is practical and will work. Otherwise, it will end up being a theory. We are putting it in law that everybody moves to secondary school and university, but we have not allocated money to educate them. The third point is that even the colleges that we are putting up, let us try and get teachers for them. One hundred per cent transition is achievable. But if teachers are not there, colleges are not there and money is not there, then we are talking nonsense. We are not being practical enough. For me, those are the answers to 100 per cent transition, as a teacher and somebody who also knows the shortcomings that we have in the education sector. Education is important for all of us, but it cannot be of quality if we do not have money for students, if we do not have teachers The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}