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
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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
.....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. See http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
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