It is about embracing technology in which a switch to digital television broadcast is coming in soon starting with the capital Nairobi. Then thereafter Kenyan kids in public primary schools will be given free laptops. However, these devices are targeted at pupils entering standard one only.
The country is taking a big IT leap and all these are expected to pay off in the near future. Giving computers to Standard One pupils is expected to help nurture talents from an early stage. This East African country has been projected as the ICT hub in the region and now all seem set to digitize the whole nation. The laptop project for the primary school pupils is a multibillion shilling development. Several local and international businesses are already jostling for the tender to offer the laptops for the children. An estimated 800,000 children are expected to benefit from the mini computers.
The laptop for Standard One pupils is expected to help nurture talents from a very early age that would help the country drive forward the wheels of its economy. Already, the country is constructing a multibillion shilling ICT city in the peripheries of the capital Nairobi. This technology city is called Konza and is tipped as one of its kind in east and central Africa.
Creating a techno-savvy generation looks like a daunting task but the benefits are incredible and this is the source of motivation to the new government that is pushing for the project. Providing laptop computers to school-children was one of the prominent promises made by the new administration. There has always been a desire to create a digital general and this is best captured by government policies and slogans hinged on the same.
This ambitious laptop project has attracted international and local ICT providers who are seeking for the tender to supply the devices. This is a multibillion shilling project that would be carried out each year as schools admit fresh Standard One pupils. The whole school ICT project is expected to create job opportunities for many unemployed people directly and indirectly.
The most prominent shortcoming of this project is that it excludes pupils from informal schools which are mostly community-run and situated in slums around the cities. Most, if not all of the pupils learning in the so-called informal schools come from very poor societies in which neither parents nor schools can afford to make available laptops of computers for their study. Equal ICT development cannot therefore be attained in the country if the children learning in informal schools are left out.
It has to be said that while ICT is scant among public primary schools pupils and the teachers, children in privately owned schools are way ahead in technology. Most pupils in private schools know how to use computers or laptops owned by their parents or which are available in school. This gap in ICT literacy is what seems to be pushing the government hard to bridge.
In the same category of ICT illiteracy among Kenyan kids are pupils in the so-called informal schools which are found in informal settlements around the cities. Such schools are mostly community-run and are ill-equipped and ill-funded. Unfortunately, pupils in informal schools are not part of the targeted beneficiaries in the free laptop project.
The country is taking a big IT leap and all these are expected to pay off in the near future. Giving computers to Standard One pupils is expected to help nurture talents from an early stage. This East African country has been projected as the ICT hub in the region and now all seem set to digitize the whole nation. The laptop project for the primary school pupils is a multibillion shilling development. Several local and international businesses are already jostling for the tender to offer the laptops for the children. An estimated 800,000 children are expected to benefit from the mini computers.
The laptop for Standard One pupils is expected to help nurture talents from a very early age that would help the country drive forward the wheels of its economy. Already, the country is constructing a multibillion shilling ICT city in the peripheries of the capital Nairobi. This technology city is called Konza and is tipped as one of its kind in east and central Africa.
Creating a techno-savvy generation looks like a daunting task but the benefits are incredible and this is the source of motivation to the new government that is pushing for the project. Providing laptop computers to school-children was one of the prominent promises made by the new administration. There has always been a desire to create a digital general and this is best captured by government policies and slogans hinged on the same.
This ambitious laptop project has attracted international and local ICT providers who are seeking for the tender to supply the devices. This is a multibillion shilling project that would be carried out each year as schools admit fresh Standard One pupils. The whole school ICT project is expected to create job opportunities for many unemployed people directly and indirectly.
The most prominent shortcoming of this project is that it excludes pupils from informal schools which are mostly community-run and situated in slums around the cities. Most, if not all of the pupils learning in the so-called informal schools come from very poor societies in which neither parents nor schools can afford to make available laptops of computers for their study. Equal ICT development cannot therefore be attained in the country if the children learning in informal schools are left out.
It has to be said that while ICT is scant among public primary schools pupils and the teachers, children in privately owned schools are way ahead in technology. Most pupils in private schools know how to use computers or laptops owned by their parents or which are available in school. This gap in ICT literacy is what seems to be pushing the government hard to bridge.
In the same category of ICT illiteracy among Kenyan kids are pupils in the so-called informal schools which are found in informal settlements around the cities. Such schools are mostly community-run and are ill-equipped and ill-funded. Unfortunately, pupils in informal schools are not part of the targeted beneficiaries in the free laptop project.
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