Let me add that if there is any incompetence within our ICT folk then that impacts negatively on all of us not just us the people being governed. My take on this issue:
- Policy is not meant to create barriers for entry for competence skilled people. All over the world there are plenty of examples of individuals who have impacted the technology space without finishing professional certification courses. We use their products to even write emails like these ones that we are writing right now, and write the proposed bills themselves. We all have to agree on one issue, if it were to come to a point where we would stick to the letter and even implement these policies to encompass all the technology that we use, we would find it even impossible to write the proposed bills we are tabling in parliament in the first place.
- To add to this, to do justice to such a bill it means also critically analysing all of the things we use on a daily basis. And I would be pretty sure we may not even be using any laptop, tablet, or mobile device if we follow the bill to the letter.
- Our current talent generation pipelines won't help solve this problem. This is in-fact the bigger crisis to solve. I am sure we are not addressing standardization of curricula or what facilities our institutions should have (or even investing in those facilities). If we implement these policies, what will we do to solve the pipeline? Which is the very reason competence is lacking in the first place.
- Therefore, policy should therefore address "enabling competence". I think the proposed draft from Kictanet addressed this. Enabling competence goes into creating policies to allow us to update our curricula, make sure the curricula comply to set standards, capacity build individuals to adopt best practices, incubate innovation, and therefore "create opportunity" channels for individuals to thrive, instead of limit. I also think there is massive revenue generation capacity from capacity building. Kenyans can invest their hard earned cash, without complaints, to get their skills and competences upgraded.