Kenya: ICT industry invests in public schools

Once again Kenya plays a leading role amongst African countries in ICT. Following a substantial investment into infrastructure, namely with the NOFBI project and the planned LTE networks, the government has introduced a partnership between the Ministry of Education and AccessKenya, the country’s leading corporate ISP and technology solutions provider. Together they will promote a campaign towards enhanced ICT services in public primary and secondary schools.

“Our vision is to see the inclusion of the education sector in the advancements being experienced in the local and regional ICT space. As the bedrock for intellect and talent development, we help the education sector — especially the marginalized and vulnerable in our society — to realize their potential in relation to the use of technology.”

These are the words of Kris Senanu, AccessKenya’s Deputy Chief Executive, during a press conference on the 10th of March, after signing two agreements with inABLE Kenya and Computers for Schools Kenya (CFSK) — in order to provide respectively 6 million KES to support the ‘Assistive Technology Labs” project and 1.2 million KES for the ‘Enhancing ICT use in Schools’ initiative.

Assistive technology labs in special needs schools. Reaching out to over 1700 special needs students, AccessKenya will provide broadband internet to six Schools for the Blind such as the Likoni Primary School in Mombasa, the Kibos Primary and Secondary School and St Oda’s Primary School in Kisumu and the St Francis Primary School in Kapenguria. These schools will receive free broadband internet connection and assistive technology services that have already been implemented in the Lucy’s Primary and Highschool School in Meru and in Thika’s Primary and Secondary School.

Kris Senanu – Vice Amministratore Delegato di Access Kenya

Moreover, by the end of 2015, together with CSFK, AccessKenya will sponsor four refresher courses in ICT and assistive technology workshops for over 200 public school principals and teachers. This will be another important achievement for Kenya’s spearheading ICT program. And this explains the optimistic tone of Tom Musili’s (Executive Director of CFSK) statement:

“ICT is penetrating at a high rate especially in secondary schools which is the exit point to higher education, employment and business. The principals and teachers being managers of the education process, therefore need to be well equipped with relevant modern ICT tools for proper integration of technology into schools”.