Learners receive more gadgets in digital literacy project

NAIROBI, KENYA:  Learners from the Arap Moi Primary School on Tuesday benefited from digital learning equipment courtesy of Samsung Electronics East Africa.

The school received twenty tablets, four projectors and four all share cast dongles from the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), in partnership with Samsung Electronics East Africa, as part of a strategy to enhance the school’s capacity for digital education. In addition,a number of activities such as painting of the school walls, as well as football and netball tournaments took place during the day.

Arap Moi Primary School is home to 1,700 learners, including a special unit for children with disabilities, and the installation of a Samsung Solar Powered Internet School (SPIS) has proved to be beneficial. The project, which began in May 2014, marked an initiative which aimed to improve the quality of education at the school as well as other neighboring communities that fell outside the grid.

Since the installation of the facility, there has been a steady improvement in the school’s performance in the national exams. From a mean score of 258.70 in 2013, 264.91 in 2014, the school steadily rose to a mean score of 272.84 in 2015.

Miss Rhodah Kipkore, the school headteacher, said class attendance has improved as pupils are eager to interact with the computers both for learning and research. “The school intake has greatly improved due to the presence of the SPIS. This year the school saw a population increase of 300 students”, she says. “All teachers have been trained on the basic usage of computers and the SPIS as a whole.”

Kipkore said that other schools from other regions visit the facility and utilise the solution, a testament to the ‘multiplier effect’ of a solution designed to provide ease of access to technology.

Addressing the learners during the visit, Vice President and Managing Director of Samsung Electronics East Africa, Mr. Jung Hyun Park, said “our solutions are built with the intention of bringing hope to the people who will be using them. Arap Moi Primary School and the greater community of Kajiado county and indeed Kenya, will now have access to education using technology of the highest standard. We are committed to our vision to impact the lives of many through innovation and skills development in the communities we operate.”

“The SPIS is more learner-centered as opposed to teacher-centered. Teachers are able to research and get rich online content which they can then integrate with their class to improve the teaching process by giving better demonstrations and examples,” Mr. Park said. “In order to monitor progress, learners cannot go online without a teacher’s permission. Teachers are also able to monitor what learners are doing on their laptops.”

The project was implemented in partnership with KERIS for teacher training, monitoring and project evaluation and focuses on the deployment of ICT Infrastructure like the Samsung Interactive Whiteboard, commonly called E-board, the multi-purpose Samsung printer and Samsung laptops. 

The classroom management software is complimented with professional development of educators, content generation and management, as well as sharing best practices in the integration of ICT in enhancing learning and teaching. A number of trainings have been conducted by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development on how to deliver digital content to the pupils.

“We hope that the benefits of what we have done are reaped by generations to come. As Samsung, we see education as the seed of innovation and we will continue to commit our resources to ensuring that access to quality education becomes a reality for our children, so that they may become forward-thinking leaders of our country,” concludes Park.