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"id": 95120,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Chanzu",
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"legal_name": "Yusuf Kifuma Chanzu",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move:- THAT, aware that the minimum university entry requirements is a C+ attained at KCSE; concerned that there has been an exponential increase in students attaining the qualifying mark against stagnating capacities in public universities; alarmed at the the continued drastic increase in cost of university education; this House urges the Government to balance the cost between the regular and parallel systems of university education in order to ensure equity and accord more students an opportunity to pursue education at that level while providing the institutions with sustainable sources of income. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the reason why I brought this Motion is just because it has almost become a crisis now because, whereas some of the universities are charging for regular or module 1 about Kshs38,000 per year, you find that the same course is being charged at about Kshs193,000 for parallel programme while the minimum qualifications for these Kenyans to join the university are the same. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, initially, this idea was seen as a very noble one, but I think because it was politically mooted, there was no enough time to look at how it was going to be implemented and the outcome. I think at that moment, it was because there were very many students who could not join university and the facilities were wanting. But this was as a result of the Governmentâs failure to project ahead to look at the demand, as the demand for university education was rising. The Government was not in touch in order to tame the demand by increasing the facilities. This was failure on the part of the Government but because the demand was so high, Kenyans opted for it without realizing the long- term consequences. The idea was that those who could afford were the ones who were going to benefit from this scheme. My question still remains: If those who could afford, first, all of them must qualify by getting the basic minimum entry grade of C+, which is still the minimum entry requirement to universities in this country. If it was meant for only those who could afford, what was supposed to happen to those who could not afford and they had already qualified? So these are major issues which need to be addressed. However, these people did not see them because of the politics in the way this programme was introduced. So, it was actually some sort of segregation and it has continued because that time, the number of students joining the universities was not as high as today. The universities we had that time were not as many as today. What it means is that there is even a problem; you find one university charging Kshs193,000 for a course, and another one charging Kshs120,000. This is the reason why I brought this Motion so that Members can debate and throw it to Government so that it can be addressed. But I was imagining a situation whereby considering that regular university education is supposed to cost Kshs38,000 per year, this module 2, the same course goes to about Kshs200,000 for parallel students. I was looking at a situation where we could try to bridge this gap slightly because the detriment is that the students who are being admitted directly into the regular programme are more. So if you look at the issue of economics of scale, if there was something small, a top up, even if we called it cost-sharing, then we reduce also what the parallel students pay, we will have more students going into the university and we will avoid this situation because then we can have controls. Right now, we do not control it. When we said that it was for those who could afford, now it jumped from the people with C+ and it is a mixture. You get those who can afford but they have worse than a C+ finding their way into the university. So it has compromised the standards of education in the country. What was the rationale of charging students under the parallel programme almost seven times when they have the same qualifications as those ones in the regular programme? I do not think the money that has been generated through this parallel programme has all been ploughed back into the universities to do what it was intended to do. The facilities have not improved and we are still looking for donor funding. Some of the meetings we have held like in the Public Investments Committee, you find that universities have a lot of outstanding debts and yet the intention here was to help them to fund some of the activities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the principals of the teacher training colleges whom I think are meeting here in Nairobi and who have taken a very bold move. They have said that Kshs30,000 is not enough to sustain a student in a teacher training college. They are asking that this amount be increased by 20 to 50 percent in order to be able to sustain them. In fact, my argument again was, although it is a hard and painful one, but if in secondary schools, even public secondary schools, we are now paying up to even Kshs60,000, I was finding that these figures of about Kshs38,000 to be a bit too low. If we could find a way of bridging the gap so that we can get more people joining these universities, I think this will help us. In an effort to save, many students have gone to universities outside this country but they have ended up spending a lot of money. There is a lot of money that has been spent outside. We waste a lot of foreign exchange taking students outside the country when if we had put our systems in order, these students would all be educated in this country. This is happening in many other countries. Go to countries like Britain, they have many universities and colleges. They do not need to go to other countries to study there just because they are trying to cut corners. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like this House to support this Motion so that we can encourage more of our students to take education here. The other issue which I was looking at is; if it is going to be adjusted, the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), which is a noble idea, needs to be properly streamlined. If possible the information to students should be decentralized rather than handling it in Nairobi. If these students get HELB loans and the way the country is moving; trying to work on strategies of creating employment for Kenyans, these students will earn their own living and be able to repay the loans. So, I think the problem we had with HELB is underfunding and structures which are not in order. The HELB has to be more flexible. They have to try as much as possible to reach as many students as possible so that these students can apply for loans and be able to attain education locally at subsidized levels. Finally, the Motion we had in the morning was to do with education. It came out of the contribution by Members that we need a lot of reforms in this sector. This is because it is very key. For us to develop as a country, the starting point must be education. If we want to create wealth it must be education. There is no way we can implement reforms we are talking about if we do not have educated people. Even if we are talking about Vision 2030, there is no way we are going to achieve this if we do not have educated manpower. So it is very important that we look at this. I plead with my colleagues to support the Motion. I also want the Government to take it positively. They should not be defensive all the time. If all the recommendations of all the commissions on education that were established in this country had been implemented, I do not think we would be at the stage of struggling and trying to do things piecemeal like we are doing. With those few remarks, I beg to move. I call upon Dr. Bonny Khalwale to second."
}