Tutors ill-prepared for laptops project: Amina

Education CS Amina Mohamed(R) with his PS Belio Kipsang when they appeared before the National Assembly Education Committee at Parliament on Tuesday 09/10/18 regarding the on going clashes in some part of the country and Logistical problems on the forth coming National Examinations. [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

The Government has revealed that teachers are ill-prepared to implement the multi-billion shilling laptops programme for primary schools.

The laptops are also being mishandled and stolen, hampering implementation of the Jubilee administration’s pet project.

Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed made the revelations when she appeared before the National Assembly’s Education committee on Tuesday.

Speaking for the first time on the status of the Digital Literacy Programme (DLP), Amina said teachers had been slow to adopt information and communication technology.

“The rate at which teachers are embracing the use of technology is low due to lack of practise and support/training,” Amina told the MPs, adding that training of all teachers in DLP was yet to be completed due to delayed funding.

Servers distributed

The CS said about 1.1 million learning devices, including servers and routers, had been distributed to schools by March. She said cases of misuse had been reported despite each school being given Sh60,000 to build secure storage for the laptops.

Committee chairman Julius Melly asked the ministry to ensure that schools protected the learning devices already sent to schools.

“It will be a sad thing if we struggle to allocate funds to buy the devices only for them to be stolen,” said Mr Melly.

Amina said 983,271 tablets had been distributed across 19,565 public schools. Only 2,164 are yet to get the devices.

Data tabled in Parliament showed that 47,902 teachers’ digital devices had been distributed to the schools as well as a similar number of digital content servers and wireless routers.

The CS said there was need to train all teachers in special needs education institutions and regular public schools.

She also called for the creation of regional ICT hubs where teachers could go for training or refresher sessions during school holidays.

She said 91,000 public primary school teachers in grades one, two and three had been trained in DLP.

ICT champions

“We have also trained 325 secondary school teachers as ICT champions. The training was conducted in two phases, with 156 champions already trained under phase one and 175 trained in phase two,” the CS stated.

Amina also said 30 master trainers had been instructed in the ICT programmes.

“Through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, the ministry developed an online course for teachers on ICT integration in teaching.”

The CS revealed that other challenges the project faced included inadequate infrastructure and lack of designated ICT rooms in schools.