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"id": 95144,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Shakeel",
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"legal_name": "Ahmed Shakeel Shabbir Ahmed",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I beg to contribute to this Motion. The parallel degree programme is being hated as if it is the core of the problem. It is not. This programme has actually been the saviour of the education system in this country. I sit in the Council of Maseno University. Before this programme, the university was suffocating. It was dying. Money was not available. Our lecturers and professors were leaving because they were not being paid. There was lack of encouragement. The students were suffering. With this programme, this university just like other universities, has found a new lease of life. It has started to be more innovative. There is no basis for saying that the Government should drop the difference between a parallel course and a regular course if both are the same and are using same resources. If the regular course with the contribution of the Government could cover the cost of university education and give universities the ability to improve, I can assure you that universities would had developed much further. All over the world, universities are depending on students in parallel degree programmes to help them cover their operational costs. This also improves the quality of education. Those who can afford the cost of parallel degree programme courses should do it. Those who can get the regular admission should do so. The fact of the issue is that it is not universities that are at fault, it is the system that is faulty. If 70 per cent of our population are youths, even if they are fortunate enough to go to university, they will be tarmacking although they have degrees. There is nothing worse than a disillusioned graduate. We need to re-look at our tertiary level colleges. Between a heart surgeon and a plumber, the Canadians and Australians will pick a plumber and turn down the heart surgeon because it is skilled management that is required now. We need to go down to skilled management. We need to go down to skill management. I am a product of a polytechnic. The polytechnics that we had have been taken over and converted into universities. We are now ending up with a university everywhere. Even former high schools are now being called âuniversityâ just because somebody got a charter, because he knew somebody in the system. We are very soon going to have a university at every place, and the quality of university education is going to drop. It is like those universities are going to give bogus degrees through colleges on the streets. That is the way they are going. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was wondering how much concentration the Ministry of Education is putting into the pillars of growth in respect of Vision 2030. I just benefited from a trip to Malaysia, and I was astounded by the importance they give to education, and tertiary education, particularly management skills and what you call âdesign technologyâ. That technology has been below university. Those colleges are very much sought after by students from all over the world, because they give the right training. That is where we need to come to. I bear witness that the parallel programme is a must. Why should those who can pay, and are willing to pay, not support those who cannot pay? The question is really the capacity. If you allow the universities to continue, in a regulated manner, taking in parallel degree programmes students, they will then open up places for regular students. However, we want to ensure that these universities are not greedy, and that they do not only take in parallel degree programme students just to make money, and avoid taking in regular degree programme students. That is where our challenge lies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the question of loans and the balance of the costs, many of us went through our university education in many other countries. High street banks and financial institutions are nowadays bound by social responsibility to give loans at a low rate of interest to university students. The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) is very good, but it is not an efficient collection agency. It does not look into developing the youth. As much as we are looking at other youth enterprise skills, this Ministry must start working with our banks as partners. Banks keep on telling us that they invest in manpower development. Let them invest in manpower development. Let them invest in students who have got into degree schemes and give them five-year loans and follow up the recovery of those loans themselves. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what we must also look at is quality, and not quantity. We want to be able to say: âI got a degree from the University of Nairobi. I can stand anywhere in the world.â Surely, a degree from Mount Kenya University, or somewhere else, and other university that has not yet settled down, even Maseno University perhaps, does not stand its own ground. So, what we are after is to allow the universities within certain parameters to continue improving the standards by getting better university professors and achieving better quality. Universities are already processing what we call âdouble-shift systemâ, where they are taking in evening/night part-time students. I really feel that this is the way forward. What we really need to do is, rather than come here and ask that the Government starts supporting the parallel degree programme system, and that it reduces the difference between the two programmes, I would propose that the Government, together with financial institutions, comes up with a system similar to that of the youth enterprise scheme, where loans can be given to students. Such a scheme will work better for everybody and ensure recovery of the loans. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have all been to public universities. I hope that the quality of our universities now prevails. It is within the power of the Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology to ensure that we do not start licensing universities here, there and everywhere just because there are people who are prepared to pay for a degree. Doing so will lower the quality of university education. With that, I would like to support this Motion, but I do not agree with the aspect that the cost must be reduced and taken over, as a burden, by the Government. I agree that the cost should be reduced, but the burden should not be taken over by the Government, but rather by some financial institutions which are making millions of shillings. Let them put their money where their mouths are and finance the development of students. That is what happens all over the world. I do not see why banks in this country can make billions of shillings and just give us words of comfort without actually doing anything. Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir."
}