{"count":1608389,"next":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=json&page=148045","previous":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=json&page=148043","results":[{"id":1498632,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498632/?format=json","text_counter":226,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Mr Julius Migos Ogamba","speaker_title":"The Cabinet Secretary for Education","speaker":null,"content":"national and county levels. The draft policy is to be subjected to the constitutional processes of stakeholder validation and public participation prior to its publication and adoption by the Cabinet. The Ministry targets to have the policy in place by the end of term one in 2025. Hon. Speaker, the Ministry works with county governments in covered areas to enhance access to school meals for learners in pre-primary and primary schools. Since pre-primary education is devolved, county governments take the lead in providing school meals for such learners. However, the Ministry has adopted collaborative strategies to work with county governments and other partners to ensure that all learners in covered learning institutions are provided with school meals. This includes entering into inter-governmental partnership agreements as is the case with Nairobi City County. The agreement provides a framework for collaboration between the national Government and the Nairobi City County Government to provide school meals to learners from pre-primary to primary school level. Hon. Speaker, a school meal’s module has been developed within the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) platform and successfully piloted in Isiolo. To ensure effective implementation, it is essential that all learners are registered on NEMIS, thus enabling school meals data to be generated directly from the platform. Additionally, a mobile application linked to NEMIS has been introduced for reporting daily learner’s attendance. The application allows schools to track the number of learners who receive meals every day and monitor food stock balances in real time. Head teachers and school meals programme co-ordinators in Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Kwale and Isiolo have already been trained on using the NEMIS school meals module and the mobile application, ensuring readiness for full implementation. Plans are in place to ensure that digitisation is implemented in all our counties that are benefiting from the school meals program. Hon. Speaker, the alternative providers of basic education and training institutions in Kenya provide education for students who may not have access to mainstream schools, often due to socio-economic and geographical difficulties. Those schools are primarily operated by private individuals, faith-based organisations and community-based groups, rather than by the Government. Those institutions complement the Government's efforts to provide education training for all. Alternative Provisions for Basic Education and Training (APBET) typically serve communities in the urban informal settlement areas within the cities, towns and former municipalities. It is mainly in those environments that APBET institutions have emerged as viable options of responding to educational needs of children, youth and adults who are unable to join formal education institutions. Currently, there is no legal or policy framework for the Ministry of Education to provide school meals to learners in APBET institutions. The current budgetary provision is also limiting in terms of the scope that the school meals programme can cover. Currently, the school meals programme covers a total of 2.6 million learners in 8,185 schools across the country as of 2024. This extends to over 26 Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) counties and informal urban settlements. It is also important to note that the budget for school meals in this financial year was reduced to Ksh3 billion from Ksh5.4 billion in the Financial Year 2023/2024, and an expansion of the programme would require an additional budget. I submit."},{"id":1498633,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498633/?format=json","text_counter":227,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Speaker","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"Hon. Anthony Oluoch."},{"id":1498634,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498634/?format=json","text_counter":228,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Mathare, ODM","speaker_title":"Hon. Anthony Oluoch","speaker":null,"content":" Thank you very much, Hon. Speaker. Allow me to congratulate the Cabinet Secretary for recognising the existence and role of APBET. The reason is because there are about three million students in the Republic of Kenya who are neither in public nor private schools, and are excluded under the definition of"},{"id":1498635,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498635/?format=json","text_counter":229,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Mathare, ODM","speaker_title":"Hon. Anthony Oluoch","speaker":null,"content":"The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."},{"id":1498636,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498636/?format=json","text_counter":230,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Mathare, ODM","speaker_title":"Hon. Anthony Oluoch","speaker":null,"content":"Article 43 which states that every person has a right to education. I, therefore, want to thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for recognising those APBET institutions. However, are you aware that the bureaucracy underneath your office, beginning with the sub-county directors, undermines the Legal Notice of 2015 that anchors the idea of APBET? To begin with, NEMIS, which is a requirement for recognition and following up students from their registration, how they go up their levels to the point of doing their exams and even on school feeding program, is denied to APBET students? Are you also aware that even for registration for exams, teachers in APBET institution call me every time exams are about to be done that they cannot register students because they are neither in public nor private schools? Lastly, I brought a Bill in the last Parliament which was an amendment to the Basic Education Act to anchor APBET institutions in law. Are you aware that, that Bill has passed through the Committee and is about to be published? Members of the Nairobi City County and Members of Parliament who are mostly affected by this, and especially those who represent the informal settlements, including Hon. Kajwang’, would like to have a stakeholder’s engagement with you. We would like to leave here with an assurance that we will get an appointment before or just after the publication of that Bill. I, thank you."},{"id":1498637,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498637/?format=json","text_counter":231,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Speaker","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"Hon. Mary Emaase."},{"id":1498638,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498638/?format=json","text_counter":232,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Teso South, UDA","speaker_title":"Hon. Mary Emaase","speaker":null,"content":" Thank you, Hon. Speaker. It is good that you have given me the chance before the Cabinet Secretary responds because it is related to the questions that have been raised by the Members. Cabinet Secretary, all the Ministry’s directives to schools are disregarded. I am particularly concerned because in my constituency, for every ten births that are recorded in hospitals, six of them are children under the age of 18 years. This is caused by children being sent home and spending most of their time at home because they have not paid for the school feeding programme and yet, some of them have their homes next to the schools. They can walk home, eat and go back, but they are forced to pay the money. You have to pay even if your home is next to the school. When children are sent home for fees, they spend most of their time at home and we should, therefore, expect many young mothers - which is a concern to us. The Ministry has to do something. When you give directives, you must have a system of compliance to ensure that the schools and the teachers comply so that we can have our children stay and study in school."},{"id":1498639,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498639/?format=json","text_counter":233,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Speaker","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"Hon. Kajwang’. Kindly give him the microphone."},{"id":1498640,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498640/?format=json","text_counter":234,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Ruaraka, ODM","speaker_title":"Hon. TJ Kajwang’","speaker":null,"content":" Hon. Speaker, first, allow me to congratulate the Cabinet Secretary for his intellectual honesty to admit some things which have not been admitted in his docket ever, including the issue of alternative basic education. This is a bold step that the cabinet secretaries before him and the operatives under him, have never embraced. This is in the entire Nairobi and the informal settlements. This is the bedrock of how our learners get education. Just to put my friend here in order, the issue of the publication is not in his hands. The issue of the publication of the Bill is in the hands of the Hon. Speaker. Probably, you might want to fast-track that publication so that we can engage robustly with the Cabinet Secretary so that we can create an alternative policy."},{"id":1498641,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498641/?format=json","text_counter":235,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. Speaker","speaker_title":"","speaker":null,"content":"Thank you, Hon. Kajwang’. We will do so. Cabinet Secretary."}]}