Jubilee Govt abandons laptop project for laboratories

Over six years ago, the Jubilee coalition promised that if elected they would put laptops in the hands of every standard one child in public schools across the country.

In 2016 three years later the government launched the digital literacy program and promised that 23,951 public primary schools in Kenya would receive a total of 1.2 million learner digital devices which ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru affirmed has happened recently on Citizen Daybreak.

But the government has now suspended issuance of tablets to class one pupils under the digital literacy programme, opting instead to build computer laboratories for 25,000 public primary schools countrywide.

“When you look at what the government has sank into the project Ksh.70 billion. It would have constructed 28,000 classrooms to accommodate 1.1 million children….I think it was wrong for the ministry to sabotage itself by ensuring it implements this program in a hurry,”  said Amos Kaburu – Educationist.

Various government reports indicated that the projected had failed to achieve its intended outcome and teachers were ill-prepared for the roll out.

According to Kaburu that is in fact was where the government failed the most.

“Imagine teachers who are supposed to impart the same knowledge being computer illiterate. How does that work?” said Kaburu

During the rollout, in May 2016, the policy shifted from laptops to tablets due to cost implications.

Not all the pupils in primary schools had received the tablets and those that got, some were no longer using them while others have also been stolen.

Well, the government has gone back to the drawing board and now redirected its energies to enable construction of computer laboratories.