As learning becomes more digitised in Kenya, experts have projected fears that there is no relevant educational content that is approved by the government for use in primary schools.

During a stakeholder’s forum at the m:Lab East Africa, experts in the education sector said that the technology to conduct education in Kenya is available but there are few publishers willing to convert their content into soft copy for the purposes of e-learning.

Anne Salim, a researcher from iHub Research, added that it is hard to get content that is digitised.

“Curriculum content is limited to what is allowed by the ministry of education,” she said.

“Most publications are PDFs and publishers are afraid of piracy on their books,” said Njeri Wangari, IT manager for East Africa publishers.

And the PDF format has been faulted with the fact that it does not translate to e-learning as the material is not interactive.

“The tech needs to meet the publishers and get to know their fears and provide solutions,” Wangari noted.

Wangari also said that the management of publishing houses is affected by “age” and they miss the whole idea of technology in their strategies.

“They see the digital age as a fad,” he said.

However, these challenges have not hindered the technology development of education in the East African nation. MPrep, one of the players in e-learning software in the country, says it has a wide reach of students.

The company claims to have produced the best students in the country using their SMS and USSD system.

According to their impact study in various schools, students are able to improve their Maths scores by 9% and English marks by 6%.

Through this system teachers were also able to know which areas the students were struggling in and therefore make the right adjustments.

Kids Code It is also an organisation that trains primary school children in rural areas to use technology such as the computer.

Vincent Wasonga, the computer instructor and curriculum developer for Kids Code, says that teaching technology to children in rural areas is not difficult.

“It’s not so different from any place I suppose. The only challenge is that there is a huge challenge with teaching in English. But they are as eager as anywhere else,” Wasonga told ITWeb Africa.

On the part of local content for local use, Wasonga said, “There is the general tutorials you get online but there are none locally for kids so we are in the process of making our own.”