[kictanet] National ICT Innovation and Integration Centre

[robert yawe]

Hi,

I had the privilege of attending the official opening of the National ICT 
Innovation and Integration Centre by Hon. Ongeri at the Kenya  Science Campus.

The investment is major and they seem to be forecast on their objective of 
integrating ICT into the primary and secondary school curriculum and 
administration.


During the launch the Education Secretary in his speech indicated that the 
ministry was to set-up computer labs in 1021 schools, 5 in each constituency an 
issue the Minister picked during his off the cuff speech when he requested a 
clarification from the the Education Secretary as to the best of his knowledge 
the schools to be reached were supposed to be  1050.

This raised an interesting issue, the reason was that there are actually 
constituencies in this country that have less than 5 secondary schools which 
might increase after the additional constituencies recommended.  It was 
interesting how the minister was able to give a quick resolution by directing 
that the allocated computers must remain in the constituency and not reallocated 
elsewhere, a clear sign that there are effective leaders in this country.

It was interesting to realise that there is a clear  distinction between the 
various facets of education namely learning, teaching and management.  The fact 
that the ministry and other stake holders have this clearly defined means that 
we are likely to see a more holistic implementation of technology.

The initiative has also rolled out a portal called www.elimuportal.net, which 
was down as of this writing but is fortunately hosted locally, we hope they will 
also see it necessary to give it a .ke domain.  From the presentation this 
portal will become the hub for teacher and student resources so we hope that the 
KICTB and the e-government have allocated them space in the forthcoming national 
data centre.

It is interesting how much information you can gather at a government function, 
I now know and share some of the insights.

1.  There are 265,000 teachers country wide but we still have a shortfall of 
70,000 teachers.  With the new directive that all teachers must have degrees it 
means that if we force all graduates to become teachers it will take us over 3 
to 5 years to meet the 70,000 shortfall.  If we have a demand growth of 5% per 
annum, cumulative, then it will take us forever to bridge the shortfall.

The minister realises this and made a request that we look for innovative ways 
to deal with this shortfall which is where we come into the picture. Solutions 
such as radio and tv lessons (digital transmission) and the paradigm shift by 
initiatives like khanacademy mean that we have the tools and all we need is the 
will.

2.  There are 8.6 million students in primary schools up from 5.9 million in 
2005 with a transition rate of 72.5% up from 45% in 2005.  The recommended 
transition rate from primary to secondary proscribed under MDG goals is 70%, 
this is a clear indication that we are making progress.

I am sure many of you have this statistics at your finger tips as a result of 
the Open Data initiative but I still felt obligated to share what I learnt from 
spending my morning at the launch.

Regards
 Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya


Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
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