Public Primary Schools to receive laptops by June ICT CS

The government is set to launch the pilot project of the Digital Literacy Programme starting next week.

ICT CS Joe Mucheru says already 150 schools are certified and ready for the roll-out. The process will involve installation and testing of computing devices and softwares to access usability.

“The e-readiness tool assessed the number of teachers trained, electricity connection and metering, device storage facilities, appropriate desks and availability of a secure location,” said CS Mucheru.

Moi University and JP Courto, one of the consortiums that won bids of the project, will cover 26 counties while Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Positivo BGH will deal with 21 counties in installing the devices and the digital content.

“We continue to emphasize that this program is not about devices. We now want to focus on other components of the program such as teacher training, power connections,” added Mucheru.

The 17 billion shillings project will see the Ministry of Education develop curriculum content besides training teachers while the ICT Authority will oversee any technical matters and device support maintenance for the project that will be carried out in two phases as from June.

“The first batch of 600,000 devices will be delivered to 11,000 schools starting June 2016 marking the beginning of the first phase. The second batch will be delivered to the other 11,000 schools by June 2017.”

The government dropped its one laptop per child project for Kenyan primary schools in June saying it was no longer feasible and instead opted for a more integrated approach dubbed the Digital Literacy Programme.

By Victor Kenani