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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
"speaker_title": "",
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"content": "Here we are as a Government. We have the Constitution and laws that tell us that under the Constitution, the right to education is guaranteed. This is guaranteed under the Basic Education Act, which states that every child has a right to free and compulsory basic education. Here we are as legislators giving awards, prizes or tokens. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1563843,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
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"content": "Even just by the definition of it, someone will tell you that it is illegal because a bursary is an award or prize. A prize is something that you are given after you have done something so that you are celebrated. For example, when you win, you are given an award. It can also be a token for recognition. For example, I can be told that I did something or spoke well and, therefore, they give me a token for recognition. What is this token of recognition that we are giving our children when under the Basic Education Act, it is provided that every child has the right to free and compulsory basic education? Madam Temporary Speaker, it is on this basis that I want to discuss this Motion, which I support. Sen. Thang’wa, congratulations for being courageous enough to bring an unpopular Motion because when those legislators who are holding these ‘awards’ hear us discussing it, they get very upset because you are essentially taking away their campaign resources. I do not want to call it bursary because it is an award. That is the truth of the matter. You are taking away their campaign resources and what they use to go and convince the people at the grassroots that they are working so hard as their leaders, and hence they are giving them awards to go to school. yet under the Constitution, it is your right to go to school, to have that free compulsory education. Why would a leader then come and say, “I am recognizing you and I am giving you this token yet, we have it clearly stipulated in our Constitution?” Madam Temporary Speaker, it is on this basis that I support this Motion because, first, how did we get to a point where we are giving awards? How did we get here? Who generated this thing called bursary, where did it start from? How did we get, from a point where we had our children even getting free milk in school, to a point where now we are giving awards, we have bursary? We are saying that we are helping you so that you can be able to go and sit in a classroom and get basic education, which is your right. That is what we should be discussing. Where did the rain start beating us? Madam Temporary Speaker, as much as I celebrate and support devolution, and as much as I am actually in this House courtesy of devolution because this is the Upper House that is there to protect devolution, I would like to also say there are some funny things that came with this devolution. One of them is bursaries and the culture of bursaries because you have bursaries under the Women Representatives, Members of Parliament, Governors--- Everyone who has some level of devolved authority has somehow managed to convince the Exchequer or the people that we need bursaries, so that we can go and give children awards and tokens instead of ensuring that they have their rights to the access of free compulsory education. Madam Temporary Speaker, I also would like to highlight the fact that, obviously, based on the budgets that we have seen, as a country, we need to be honest to each other. We are unable to facilitate complete free education from nursery school all the way to university. It is time, as a country, we ask ourselves, if we are overly ambitious that we want to facilitate free education from nursery to primary to high school to university. It might not work. Perhaps, that is overly ambitious. However, is it possible then to have a conversation to say, can we at least have completely free primary education? When I talk about free, it is not where you are told it is free, however, you have to pay Kshs20 for ABCD, or however, the Board of Management together with the Parents Teachers The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1563844,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563844/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Association have decided to come together, therefore you have to pay motivation to have the teachers to come in class for two or three extra hours. Madam Temporary Speaker, let us have an honest conversation that should generate from this Upper House, where we really want to push for equity, but we are also alive to the fact that as it stands, perhaps, we cannot finance the full education all the way to university, but then let us talk about consolidating all these funds and ensuring that at the bare minimum, primary school education is completely free. Madam Temporary Speaker, someone might be saying why primary school, why not primary school and high school? We are moving to a place where it is no longer about the certificates that you churn out. It is no longer about the theory. It is actually about the skills that you have. Madam Temporary Speaker, in developed countries, particularly in Europe, where I have had the experience of living, once you have that basic skills set, that basic education of primary school and you have an idea of what you want to be in future, or at least you have some level of drive that puts you to a certain industry, if they see this person is a musician, there is no point of me taking you through a whole other education system just to say that you finished your high school and now you have this certificate and then you go back to harness your creative skills. Madam Temporary Speaker, in developed countries, they give you the basic education and then it is encouraged for you to pick up a skill that can translate to some form of monetary work. That is why I am saying, my argument would be, once we consolidate these bursaries, if we are unable to give a platform where we can have completely free education, both in primary and high school, we should have an honest conversation with ourselves and say, let us focus on the primary, and ensure that in primary school, all the basic education levels are met, all the children are taken care of equally. It does not matter from which region or which county, whether it is a provincial school or a ward school. Let us just make sure that it is completely free for all primary schools. Madam Temporary Speaker, I do not want to belabour the point where my colleagues have talked about how this bursary, which is essentially a token, an award, has been politicized. It is obvious, the moment you have a resource given to a leader who is in politics, the one thing they will do, which they know how to do best, because they are there to represent their people, is to represent their people. That is why you hear in some constituencies, someone will tell you that the Member of Parliament will only give bursaries to the clan where they belong. That is literally the least expectation from the people. So, my thinking is, first of all, the whole idea of bursary is illegal. As I have said, the definition of bursary is that it is a monetary award. Why are you awarding children when our Constitution says that they have a right to free and compulsory education? If we are being honest with each other, just by its definition, we have to all agree that, in fact, we have been engaging in illegalities. We have been breaking the law because, in one way or another, we are stifling and making sure that these children and homes are unable to meet the financial expectation to get to the institutions of learning so that we can come and award them and say that we are the saviors. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orwoba",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I support this Motion because its basis is to end what I call the help mafia thinking. The help mafia is the person that ensures that you remain poor and struggling, so that they can come and help you. It has become a whole industry. I call them the mafia, the industry of help. The moment we understand that bursary is endorsing the help mafia, then we are going to say this is something that we do not support. It is an illegality because it goes against the Constitution where every child has a right to free and compulsory education and we will deal with this thing as legislators by ensuring that we are not legislating an illegality. So, congratulations, Sen. Thang’wa, for bringing this Motion. I do support it and look forward to a period of time where, not only are we going to have absolutely free education, but we are also going to have certain programmes like maziwa ya Nyayo, because that is where we need to go back to, where everybody could access education for free. Thank you."
},
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mumma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Sen. Olekina, please proceed."
},
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 407,
"legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
"slug": "ledama-olekina"
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"content": "Thank you Madam Temporary Speaker. I would like to seek your indulgence with my vocals today. Let me begin by saying that I oppose this Motion. I oppose it because it takes us back into the 20th Century, where we defined the rich and the poor based on their ability to afford education. In the 21st Century, we need to be thinking about how to make education absolutely free for our children. I long for the days when the former President, now late, President Mwai Kibaki, abolished all tuition fees and all school fees in schools, thus increasing enrolment in schools and helping this country advance to a middle- income economy. Madam Temporary Speaker, bursaries are defined as a way of sort of like increasing the gap between the rich and the poor because we, politicians, will only be able to reward our friends and our cronies. I have looked keenly at the recommendations and what the Senator for Kiambu County is seeking us to do is to add the Ministry of Education to carry out the following functions. One, is to audit the funds allocated to bursaries by both the national Government and county governments. First of all, I think that is completely misguided. The Auditor- General is the only one who has the capacity to audit how much money is allocated to bursaries in county governments and the the national Government because the Auditor- General is the only one with the mandate to audit county government funds. We are having a big problem with the Controller of Budget (CoB) seeking to be given permission to be able to see how money flows in the counties; to be able to have an eye on the accounts of the county governments. If the CoB is not being given that ability to be able to scrutinize and see, who tells you that the Ministry of Education, which is a monster and national Government entity, will be given the permission by the county governments to audit that? I think that is completely misguided. The second one, which is to consolidate the funds distributed by various Government entities and agencies, with the aim of directing these funds directly to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1563848,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563848/?format=api",
"text_counter": 256,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 407,
"legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
"slug": "ledama-olekina"
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"content": "schools as supplementary capitation to facilitate the achievement of free secondary education. That is also completely misguided. If an agency is able to allocate money to students to get education, it will be very difficult for that agency to transfer that information to the Ministry of Education, so that the Ministry of Education can now take that money and consolidate it to be able to fund students. The only thing which I think the distinguished Senator really saw it fit, and I support that, is where the Ministry of Education can be able to calculate the cost of education per learner and make this information public for primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions. Currently, if you try to do an average, it costs about a maximum of Kshs20,000 per year for a child to be able to get their primary education. It costs between Kshs40,000 to Kshs100,000 in a public secondary school for a child to be able to get their secondary education, and anywhere between Kshs100,000 to Kshs600,000 per year for a child to be able to get higher education in this country. What we need to narrow our thinking on is how to solve the problem of education in this country. We need to borrow the script from the late President on how he abolished school fees and tuition from our schools to ensure that our children get free basic education. That is what we need to be asking ourselves. We need to carry out a comparative analysis, look at other countries; look at the United States as an example. I know some people would say that it is a developed country. No, it is not. It is not only developed, but other African countries are beginning to say that we must prioritize basic education. We are currently allocating Kshs656 billion to education in this country. If we were to say that there is no point in having this money in the NG-CDF, there is no point in having this money elsewhere, we need to now ask ourselves how our system of education works. I want to challenge the Department of Education, even the Committee of Education, for them to look at how we can have a policy shift. The Ministry of Education must now decide that it is time for us to start district schools. I know when you look at the Constitution, the county governments are only tasked, they are mandated by the Fourth Schedule to invest in ECDE and polytechnics. Primary school is a mandate of the national Government. So, what we need to do, first of all, is to look at the Constitution. Can we change that? If my brother is trying to borrow from Article 189 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 on roles that are carried out by one level of government to another level of government, then I think the best thing to do is to go a notch higher and say, let us look at this task for basic education. Can we redefine basic education? Can we say basic education is ECDE and primary education? Then we move that mandate to the county governments and create district schools. When we create district schools, let us fund them. Let us give them money. Let us give them national Government money and also county government money. That is the only way we are going to be able to achieve free primary education in this country. If we keep on lying to ourselves that we can be able to consolidate funds, NG- CDF, if right now we are having a big debate countrywide on the importance of NG- CDF, who tells you that a politician from the National Assembly, who is the one who is The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1563849,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563849/?format=api",
"text_counter": 257,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 407,
"legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
"slug": "ledama-olekina"
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"content": "passing the budget, will pass a budget that does not have NG-CDF? You know, there are things that we should waste our time discussing, and there are things that we should just give up and say, it is time for us to now click the reboot button and look at our policy direction when it comes to education. Are we able to change? My argument is very simple. We are not going to be able to consolidate these bursaries. A Motion in this House will not be able to be implemented because you will be fighting left, right, and centre. The only way for us to be able to get a solution to narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, between those who have and those who do not have, when it comes to the issue of education, is for us to go back to the Constitution and change the system of education that we have in this country. How we fund education in this country, is very crucial. There was a time when, in the then Committee of Public Accounts (CPAC) where we were questioning county governments. Why are they building secondary schools? Why are they building primary schools yet it is a mandate of the national Government? A governor will come and tell you, then, if the national Government does not want to build, what am I going to do? The national Government did not want to build back then because it was who you knew who was in the Government. So, the only way that we can guarantee free primary education and ensure that every child in this country gets access to education, whether you know Sen. Olekina or the distinguished Senator from Murang’a County, is when we decide to scrap all these bursaries. Let us do away with the bursaries. Let us make it free education. That is the argument that I want to have. I do not subscribe to the school of thought that thinks that if we consolidate these bursaries, we will be able to make sure that a child in Mosiro or Kirinyaga gets education. That child in Kirinyaga will only be able to pay for their school fees or go to primary school and afford to have that Kshs 20,000 if that child knows Sen. Olekina or the Senator from Murang’a County. Madam Temporary Speaker, I completely oppose this Motion. It is time for us to be realistic and to see what can help this country. The only thing that can help this country is if we make sure that all the policies take us to a point where there is free and compulsory education. Yesterday, we were with the President in Narok. The President said that it is the responsibility of every chief and assistant chief to make sure that a child who is of the age of going to school is taken to school. If that child is not taken to school, the chief or assistant chief will be the one to answer why that child is not in school. I want us to go a notch higher. How do we ensure that that child who is not in school, because the parents cannot afford to take that child to school, that child is allowed to go to school? Today, we are talking about the Social Health Authority (SHA). We have created a system in SHA whereby we will be able to access. If you can pay to get medical, you have to pay. If you have very little money, you pay Kshs200; if you have a little bit more money, you pay Kshs500. Some of us here pay maybe Kshs1,700 or something like that because we can be able to afford it. Can we come up with something similar to that to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1563850,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563850/?format=api",
"text_counter": 258,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 407,
"legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
"slug": "ledama-olekina"
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"content": "make sure that all those children in primary school, particularly in those counties where they still need affirmative action, are catered for? Today, Madam Speaker, if you go to Narok South, you will be shocked. There are places where children are still learning in mud-thatched houses. We need to first of all, remove those classrooms, create a good environment and build those schools and employ more teachers. After that, we send the learners there, allocate more money to the Ministry of Education or to county governments and ensure if it is Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) or primary school, it is 100 percent free. This issue of bursaries continues to create or widen the gap between the rich and the poor; those who have versus those who do not; those who are well-connected versus those just ordinary Kenyans who it is only them and their God. Madam Temporary Speaker, I completely oppose this Motion. I hope that Sen. Thang’wa can be able to advance his third request, whereby he engages the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) and other research institutes to see how much it costs to educate one child. That is a discussion I am willing to engage in. If, for example, it costs Kshs20,000, how do we ensure that if we have four million children that need to be educated, we allocate enough money for them to be educated in each and every financial year? I believe that is a conversation that will help this country. I oppose."
},
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"id": 1563851,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1563851/?format=api",
"text_counter": 259,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Muma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Senators, I wish to use my powers under Standing Order No.34 (2A) to extend today's sitting by 15 more minutes to enable us to finalize this business."
}
]
}