150 public schools in Kenya to get laptops in May

NAIROBI: Some 150 public primary schools selected for the first phase of the ambitious laptops project will get the devices on May 1. Three public primary schools in each of the 47 counties and nine schools for children with special needs have been picked for the Proof of Concept phase of the Sh19 billion project targeting all Standard One pupils in public schools. Ministry of Education officials yesterday held a day-long workshop with headteachers from the 150 schools at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development in Nairobi where the teachers were trained on how to handle the 12,000 devices—laptops and tablets—that will be given to them.

Migori Primary School in Migori County will get the highest number of tablets at 232 while St Mathias Kapkwang’ in Nandi County will get the least number—10. In the special schools category, Nile Road Special School in Makadara, Nairobi, will get the highest number of tablets at 280 while Kibos School in Muhoroni, Kisumu County will get seven tablets.

The Director of Programmes and Standards at the ICT Authority, the lead agency implementing the programme, Ronoh Kipronoh, took the teachers through what is expected of them as the Government moves to implement the project. Each of the selected schools will receive an average of 40 learner devices (tablets), one projector, two teacher devices (laptops) and a content server.

He said all the devices will be pre-installed with digital content which can be accessed without Internet connection. Head of ICT in the Ministry of Education John Tembo told the heads that they would be in charge of the devices.

“The head teachers will be the custodians of the devices in their schools and will be required to keep proper inventory,” said Mr Tembo. He said Standard One learners would use the devices for a minimum of five hours every week so that they can have adequate time to improve their writing skills.