27/10/2023
Govt. shouldn’t negate its role on education
At the dawn of independence in 1963, there were three rallying calls by the nascent government of the founding father of the nation – Mzee Jomo Kenyatta – to shake off the effects of the colonial yoke on the Kenyan people.
One of these was in the education sector – where the need to wipe out illiteracy and ignorance of the people was paramount by championing the role of education in all sectors – to steer a robust economy after independence.
This was where the newly formed government would cushion its citizenry in empowering them with skills to wipe out ignorance by giving prominence to all facets in the education sector – to rid the country of illiteracy.
The two other sectors that government would lay emphasis and focus on was to eliminate poverty within the midst of its people, and to keep an eye of the health of its people by fighting diseases like malaria and cholera that were on rampage – taking a heavy toll on Kenyans – with frequent and alarming deaths as a result of these maladies and many others like polio.
Indeed since independence, the country has witnessed many phases in all the three sectors towards advancement but very little in the obliteration of poverty, where a lot needs to be done to jumpstart the living standards of Kenyans who today live below the poverty line.
Last week, the proposal by School Principals that the 15-year-old Free Day Secondary Education (FDSE) programme that has seen millions of learners benefit from it should be scrapped is too a harsh proposal in the eyes of poor parents, and a slap in the face of the education sector, for if implemented as proposed, it will draw back the gains the country has made in this important sector.
In the proposed changes laid bare, university students whom the government has been supplementing their college fee will have to foot a certain percentage of their fee, which does not augur well nor does it stimulate efforts to make the education sector a fundamental tool – for poor parents will have to continue digging deeper in their pockets for the education of their children.
This comes at a time when the National Treasury in its Supplementary Budget on Thursday last week allocated the sector Sh29.3 billion to cater for sponsorship of first-year university students. What a coincidence!
Editorial issue 43 B
Lavington: The sun and silhouette of a dragonfly
In an unprecedented ruling in the corridors of justice by the Environment and Labour Relations court sitting at the Milimani Law Court in Nairobi, Justice Oscar Angote put on hold the construction of 522 housing units in the upmarket Lavington Estate until a case filed by residents is heard and determined inter-parties on Thursday this week, November 2, 2023.
The petitioners in the suit, who are residents of the leafy and reclusive Lavington area have moved to court to seek court orders to bar Mertcom Home Nairobi from constructing the units until a case they have filed is heard and conclusively determined.
This was after Millennium Gardens Management Limited told Court that the proposed development would block or interfere with the rays of the “natural sunlight” reaching their houses. They say their houses would be dwarfed should the construction be allowed, thus denying them the beauty and natural benefits of sunlight.
The order has reminded many of the Chinese and the Spaniards myth of the sun which puts the silhouette of a dragonfly near the Ebro River in Spain in sharp relief, and in ancient China, where the earliest word for the eclipse of the sun–shih – meaning to eat (devour), and so, the eclipses of the sun were believed to be caused by “a dragon that swallowed the sun”.
So would it mean that the petitioners fear that their houses in which they dwell will be “swallowed” by the envisaged huge 512 housing units that will deny them the natural beauty of the sun?
Sunlight is white, but different molecules in the air make it appear yellow, orange, and red. In 15 minutes, the sun radiates as much energy as people use in all forms in an entire year.
Whichever ruling the court will make in this rare court case, it is bound to have far-reaching implications in the construction industry, and more so, the National Construction Authority (NCA).
