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{
    "id": 99809,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/99809/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 343,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kizito",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 71,
        "legal_name": "Justus Kizito Mugali",
        "slug": "justus-kizito"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to encourage dialogue in the university. I would like to ask the Ministry to take the first initiative to retrain the chancellors in this country. Most chancellors in this country are not specialists of administration and management. They are only pedagogists. They are only people who have knowledge philosophies which they want to pass across but they may not have skills in administration and management. We are making a mistake here. There is a difference between management and administration. The vice-chancellor does what we call administration at the university, which is running the day to day activities of an institution. The management of an institution is done by what we call council. There is a council with a chairman that has to give long-term decisions to the vice-chancellor to do the administration; he breaks tasks into small units of day to day activities. This is why we are saying that we cannot pin the blame on the vice-chancellor when the university is run by an amorphous group. So, we need to really be very genuine when we are looking at what we want to do. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we may also need to check on mass values and if it can result in this kind of a problem. When you punish people enmasse, there is that mob psychology, and it leads to this. The issue of strikes is not new, and we need to deal with it once and for all. I know that there have been strikes in schools. I am one of the people who took the initiative to do a research in the role of student leadership. The research can be very useful to help this country in terms of getting into the quagmire of destruction of poverty by students who feel aggrieved. When rumours exist in an institution, it means there is little information circulating. There has to be communication. This affects all our Government institutions. Communication is very important. As the Chairman of the committee indicated, it is important that information is made available, so that rumour mongering does not occur at the university, and we are capable of practising the proper management and leadership of our students. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Dr. Mwiria, who was my lecturer in the university, will agree with me that there is a lot of laissez faire administration at the university, because of the vastness of the university and the many courses that are coming up. If the vice-chancellors could have time to listen to the lecturers, they would be able to iron out some differences. Lecturers should make themselves part and parcel of the administration of the university, so that they, like the university, are comfortable, iron out differences; for this reason, I am sure strikes would not be in our institutions. I also want to say that there is a major problem of financial management in our institutions. The universities now offer junior courses that would have been taken care of by other colleges. We do not expect a university to offer certificate courses. Certificate courses should be offered by middle level colleges, so that the universities can only offer diploma, degree and post-graduate courses; this way we would reduce congestion. I want to commend the Ministry for having allowed the university to also run parallel programmes. These parallel programmes are good. They are supporting our universities. They are good for our students who would have otherwise got lost. They are able to train many Kenyans in specialized areas. You can agree with me that most of our students who have attained university requirements have always gone out to Uganda and Tanzania. As a result, we lose a lot of income to pay fees in other countries. Through parallel programmes, we have money coming back here and our people can get jobs. That should not be a problem. We need to streamline so that the regular and parallel programmes do not look like they are in conflict, and bring in dissatisfaction on the part of the students. I also want to correct the impression created about low or base courses. All courses are necessary for the development of this nation. I would like to inform my colleagues that it was a wrong assertion to refer to them as “base” courses. They are not base courses. All courses are very important. I am a teacher. I trained in bachelor of education, and I do not think that the person who studied law is more important than I am. He is good in law. I am an educated friend while the lawyer is a learned friend. Learning is a small sub-set of education. So, education is better than learning. Nobody should come here and tell us that some courses are lower than others. All of them are equal, depending on where you use them and how well you can utilize them for the development of this nation. I would like to commend the university. Let them move on but let us talk together. I want to commend Kenyatta University. It has taken the lead. I am sure it is the university that started parallel programmes and open learning. My lecturer, Dr. Mwiria was one person who was very much into research and opened up many areas in the university. I want to commend them; I want them to continue taking the lead, and to take education everywhere in this country. As much as possible, they should find ways of getting students to read and pursue knowledge that will help them in the development of this nation. I would like to ask the Government to allocate more funds to universities to avoid overcrowding. In the same vein, I would like to say that we should open up more institutions, so that we do not continue killing smaller institutions. This will also ensure that we do not overload universities with junior courses like those leading to certificates. You will find a university offering a CPA course or a certificate in computer course. This can be done by other smaller colleges, so that we can continue giving people enough jobs and universities can only concentrate on what they do best. With those few remarks, I commend the committee and support the report because it is very positive."
}