Betty,

Our company (Cyber School Technology solutions ltd) has been taking part in an MOE project dubbed 'Equipping secondary schools with e-learning Infrastructure' over the last 12 months and can confidently report that over 800 teachers in 70 schools have been fully trained in not only ICT literacy skill building ( Word, excel, access, trouble shooting etc) but also utilization of Digitized content in the teaching and learning environment for Science and Mathematics subject areas as well - using KCSE specific curriculum that is available for the Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics subject areas. The 800 teachers trained were mainly from these disciplines.

Ours were only 70 of the 210 schools in this project, so I'll bet that the number of teachers trained on this initiative alone must be well over twice the figure quoted above.

In addition to this ICT courseware that is aligned to the KCSE syllabus was also provided. However many of these schools did not have ICT teachers ( though many are in the process of hiring) I know that this is the new area of focus Computer studies teachers.

I think that when it comes to secondary school ICT, it must be integrated into the teaching and learning environments in as many subject areas as possible. Teaching only ICT in schools is narrowing down the true potential of the computer as a medium in schools.

After all once the suites of word , excel access is learnt what additional value is there for the teachers and students on a day to day basis, especially as their core purpose of students going to schools is to learn several subjects and seek excellence in a fair number of them to pursue careers of choice.

Although not advanced in the newspaper article, a school of thought that needs to place the computer hardware at the centre of improvement of learning outcomes needs to be championed by all who are involved in ICT's at Secondary and Primary school levels. What I mean here is that the computer alone should not be seen as the end, but the beginning, it must be the applications that the computers will house to improve teaching and learning outcomes that need to be the central focus of any school bound ICT initiative.

I believe this is what Mr Sang was alluding to when he mentions 'ICT Integration' being a key area of focus in the MOE.

Although the process is definately slow ( 210 schools a year should be upgraded to 800 schools a year at the minimum) the important thing is that the initiative has kicked off and schools are already reporting improved grades in the science & Mathematics subjects and the technophobia that criples the adoption of ICT's in schools is slowly being eradicated.

More does need to be done to challenge some of the perceptions that were captured in the Newspaper article, that is for sure.

Fatma



On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:

Betty,

 

Thanks for your response on the article mentioned below. Will go through it and perhaps respond on key issues raised, which ICT in Education has already done or planned. I hope it will minimize fears all of us have or may be persuaded to think all is totally misplaced and lost.

 

“ICT Integration” is currently Ministry of Education focus, and steps already put in place are expected to make Kenya improve both teaching and learning environment, with better education ‘products’ across all levels.

 

Kind regards

 

B. K. Sang

 

 

From: kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Betty Ogange
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 4:31 PM
To: Barnabas K. Sang


Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses

 

Hallo David,

Last week there was furore in this forum about media misrepresentation of the Kenyan situation. The article that you make reference to in today’s Standard (24.06.09) may be accurate in the areas that you have highlighted. However, I wish to take issue with a few points raised in the article. http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316

 

 ‘Unlike other academic fields, very little has been done to train most teachers in ICT skills. Currently, no primary teacher training college offers comprehensive pre-service training in information technology.’

 

Anyone with a modest interest in education in Kenya would not miss something as obvious as a subject in the national curriculum when reporting in a national daily. Prior to the year 2004, a few colleges had ICT skills courses for pre-service teachers based on in-house curricula that were independently developed by each college. The Primary Teacher Education (PTE) ICT curriculum developed by the Kenya Institute of Education has been in force since the year 2004 and ICT is taught as a compulsory subject in all primary teacher training colleges.  It is examined internally at the end of the first year and all students must pass in the subject, among other subjects, in order to proceed to second year. There are several implementation hitches in this programme arising from the fact that ICT is being taught as a discrete subject in the curriculum and has yet to be mainstreamed in the other subjects in the PTE curriculum. The debate around ICT- pedagogy integration in education and how to operationalise it right from curriculum development to classroom level implementation continues in the education circles.

 

 ‘In-service training is often provided by trainers who are just barely literate in computers’

 

In my knowledge, this has happened especially in instances when some hardware providers ‘dangle’ teacher training as an additional offer to the institution. TTCs used to hire ICT technicians to teach the course, but in the last 2 years, the Teacher Service Commission has posted trained lecturers of ICT to a number of TTCs. There have also been some highly professional training offered to college lecturers by Microsoft (in conjunction with the Institute of Advanced Technology - IAT) and the Kenya Technical Teachers College. Computers for Schools Kenya and the Nepad e-schools teacher training programmes have also reached teachers in selected secondary schools. Lack of co-ordination (as with the rest of the ICT initiatives in Kenya ), lack of clear training targets and time-lines have compromised continuity and impact of some of these training programmes. 

 

‘The entire ICT education is in tatters’

An interesting analogy there. But I see a sector that is struggling with what some scholars in educational reform have called an ‘implementation dip’ – that for a number of reasons things normally tend to get worse before they can get better.  There are lots of difficulties in implementing large scale ICT initiatives in the education sector world over. In our country, there have been positive efforts by the Ministry of Education, the KIE and a number of stakeholders in education, and these do count. On the other hand, there has been the tendency (by education leaders) towards elaborate policy documents, ‘ICT networks’ and trust funds whose mandates remain indeterminate. All these need to be researched and accurately presented.

 

Accurate reporting by the media and objective analysis of both the positives and difficulties are important in helping the public target their attention and effort. Besides the inaccuracies, the use of expressions such as ‘in tatters’ ‘the situation is bad’, ‘alarmed professionals’  ‘obsolete hardware’ to describe ICT in education in Kenya sounds to me fairly sensational.

 

Betty  



--- On Wed, 6/24/09, David Otwoma <otwomad@gmail.com> wrote:


From: David Otwoma <otwomad@gmail.com>
Subject: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
To: ogange@yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 9:32 AM

.....universities offer many degrees but their quality and market demand differ......

 

Although nearly all universities offer degrees, only the University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Strathmore have Master’s programmes and only UON and Jkuat teach at doctoral level.

There is a diminishing number of staff with PhDs in ICT departments. According to Prof Rodrigues, UoN has the highest number of full-time lecturers with PhDs in ICT that stands at eight of 18, while Jkuat has three of six, which is the same number for Strathmore.

Kenyatta University has nine full-time but none of them have a PhD or an equivalent qualification, while none of the Kabarak’s eight lecturers have a PhD. Two of six of United States International University has doctoral degrees.

Many lecturers have no experience as ICT professionals as engineers, software developers or in the emerging area of computer and network security.

 


--
David Otwoma,
Chief Science Secretary,
National Council for Science and Technology,
Utalii House 9th Floor,
Mobile tel: +254 722 141771,
Office tel: +254 (0)20 2346915,
P. O. Box 5687 - 00100, Nairobi, Kenya
email: otwomad@gmail.com & otwoma@ncst.go.ke
www.ncst.go.ke


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