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{
    "id": 951252,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/951252/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kamukunji, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Yusuf Hassan",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 398,
        "legal_name": "Yusuf Hassan Abdi",
        "slug": "yusuf-hassan-abdi"
    },
    "content": "It is important for us to invest in technical education in order to be an achieving nation, a country that can compete in the global environment. Having been away for many years, I was quite surprised when I was elected a Member of Parliament for Kamukunji to see the state of our schools. Having worked in war torn countries, I was surprised to see how dilapidated our schools were. I am also surprised to see how discipline and commitment in teachers had gone done. Many of the schools had leaking roofs, floors were gone and did not have enough desks in some of the classes. This was quite surprising given the fact that my constituency is in the Capital City of Kenya. It is important for the new Cabinet Secretary to put a lot of emphasis to turn around the Ministry of Education, so that it can become much more efficient and a performing ministry that can deliver the best education for our children and promote the interest and wellbeing of our teachers. This will ensure that they have confidence and are motivated to teach our children. I would particularly like to emphasise the fact that the direction we are going of investing in technical and vocational institutions is the right way given the fact that many industrialised and competitive countries in terms of production went through the same route. These are countries like South Korea, Singapore and Japan. They invested in their cottage industries and gave their young people tools to learn the necessary industrial and technical skills that are required in today’s world. I also want to emphasise the fact that although it is important to put emphasis in technical skills that we require in certain traditional areas, we also must be mindful of the fact that we need to invest in new technologies in the digital, information, communication and technology industry. There is not, although the commitment is there and there is a lot of talk about it, enough investment at the local level to equip and give experience to our young people. I speak as a Member of an urban constituency with a very large number of unemployed young people who have been let down by our education system and have fallen into the cracks. They did not go to university, but were qualified. So, they do not have the necessary skills. Even now, some people who have graduated from universities, if you put them to work, many of them are not skilled and do not have the knowhow or the necessary training to do jobs that are required. That is why we need to put many of these unemployed youth, who are out in the streets back into training to get skills that are required for them to be productive citizens and to participate in making our country prosperous and advance economically. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker."
}