Look beyond younger pupils in ICT plan

It is gratifying to note that our local universities have built and are still building capacities to supply laptops and other ICT products for the school digital programme to be launched next month.

We have inadequate industries to create the much-needed jobs and stir the right economic activity. There’s too much importation into the Kenyan economy at present, a large portion of which can be substituted through local manufacturing.

For Kenya to rejig her economy, it has to undergo a major shift in focus in technology and industrialisation with the intent to target greater import substitution and greater exports.

This where the laptop plan comes in. There may be no immediate benefit to spending so much on assisting those young minds with machines, but in the long term it will pay off.

After all, ICT will play a central role in changes in the global economy and across industries for many years.

This behooves the Government to look beyond lower class pupils to engineer the focus on ICT in education across primary, secondary and tertiary training.

The current venture is just a step in the right direction notwithstanding the many challenges that it has to overcome.