Special schools to benefit from state digital literacy program

The Ministry of Education is set to incorporate 150 special needs schools in its digital literacy program – an ICT project that is set to be rolled at in all schools countrywide.

The Ministry plans to use Kibos Special School in Kisumu County to pilot this project before it is rolled out to similar institutions countrywide.

Speaking at St Lucy’s School for the Visually Impaired, the officer in charge of special needs, Moses Maigong’ said this pilot project will help identify special gadgets required by different special schools.

Maigong’ further stated that recommendations from the Kibos Special School pilot project will be incorporated in the ongoing curriculum review.

Project Manager Peter Okeyo of inABLE organization, who is installing software for special schools students, has urged the government to invest more in digital literacy for special schools.

Okeyo said that they have installed special software on computers that are suitable for visually impaired individuals, with five special schools benefitting from the ICT solution. Six more schools will benefit from this project.

The Project Manager added that the software is very expensive, and the government should find an alternative way of purchasing it so that all visually impaired students can benefit from the program.

He further added that they have reached to about 1,400 disabled children countrywide, and they are working to increase the number.

The organisation has trained 115 teachers to guide the students on how to use computers.