Kenya has officially launched its digital Literacy Programme, aimed at rolling out thousands of interactive smartboards and laptops to public junior schools across the country.
The intervention is running under the Kenya digital Economy Acceleration Project (KDEAP), funded by the World Bank and spearheaded by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, through the Information and Communication Technology Authority.
The first phase involves the distribution of smartboards and laptops to a total of 10 382 schools.
“We are directly expanding high-tech capabilities into thousands of institutions nationwide during this first phase,” said John Tanui, principal secretary: State Department for ICT and Digital Economy.
Tanui was speaking yesterday after the project was officially launched at the Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) in Nairobi.
“Today, we are putting the physical infrastructure directly into the ecosystem where it can spark the most profound change: our classrooms, our laboratories and our teacher training hubs,” he said.
Centring the deployment at CEMASTEA, according to Tanui, ensures that trainers and teachers master digital pedagogy, artificial intelligence (AI) integration and virtual lab modelling.
The Digital Literacy Programme is premised on empowering educators, democratising science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning and accelerating Kenya’s digital economy.
The devices rollout is a sub-component of KDEAP, which aims to scale digital skills, innovation and collaboration for future generations of the workforce.
Through KDEAP, the launch is linked to ongoing efforts to expand last-mile fibre connectivity, develop immersive digital repositories and foster localised digital skills.
“We are not just handing out tools. We are constructing a self-sustaining digital learning ecosystem,” Tanui said.
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