Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Bwana Sang, You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things. Mwololo On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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Prof. Waema, A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance. Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of *OSS Champions* on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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Dr. Ndemo, I hear you loud and clear. I know the debate can be quite heated for many reasons. It would be nice to have the procurement rules and any other instrument of government to be silent on this issue. I only wish the people were neutral! Sang has a very important point, which may need a guided discussion. Mwololo On 7/1/09, bitange@jambo.co.ke <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote:
Prof. Waema, A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has
done
tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang><kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do. As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars. -- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke:
Prof. Waema, A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of *OSS Champions* on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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Ikua et al, I agree with you. However, our problem is that we do not have a common position amongst the stakeholders and that is why we have such a compromise in the policy statement. With or without the backing of huge $$ budgets, we must find a common position that is for the good of this country. Mwololo On 7/3/09, Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do.
As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke:
Prof. Waema,
A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang><kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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Dear Tim, In democracies its very rare to have a 'common position'. What may be arrived by mutually consenting parties is consensus. But in the world of vested interests that is a mirage. In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed the author says 'freedom is like a childbirth'....its a painful process and many of us fear freedom. Guess who made the parts of the speech below:- Now that the dish is prepared, is very easy for people to eat it. But to prepare this dish was not a joke. I remember the first meeting we had, at Granja do Torto, which I understood absolutely nothing of this language that this people were deciding, and that was a huge tension between those who advocated for the adoption of free software by Brazil and those who thought we should do the sameness of always, buying, paying for others intelligence and, thanks God, prevailed in our country the issue and the decision of free software. We had to choose: or we were going to the kitchen to prepare this dish the way we wanted to eat, with the seasoning that we wanted, to give a Brazilian taste to our food, or we would eat what Microsoft wanted us to eat. Prevailed, simply, the idea of freedom. http://www.opensource.org/node/446 Expecting such leadership now in Kenya is some tall order or you thing we can have the President and/or Prime Minister make something close to that? Have a great week all. David On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Mwololo Tim <timwololo@gmail.com> wrote:
Ikua et al, I agree with you. However, our problem is that we do not have a common position amongst the stakeholders and that is why we have such a compromise in the policy statement. With or without the backing of huge $$ budgets, we must find a common position that is for the good of this country. Mwololo
On 7/3/09, Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do.
As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke:
Prof. Waema,
A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang><kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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-- 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 29899 - 00100, Nairobi, Kenya email: otwomad@gmail.com & otwoma@ncst.go.ke www.ncst.go.ke
Dear Tim, In democracies its very rare to have a 'common position'. What may be arrived by mutually consenting parties is consensus. But in the world of vested interests that is a mirage. In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed the author says 'freedom is like a childbirth'....its a painful process and many of us fear freedom. Guess who made the parts of the speech below? Now that the dish is prepared, is very easy for people to eat it. But to prepare this dish was not a joke. I remember the first meeting we had, at Granja do Torto, which I understood absolutely nothing of this language that this people were deciding, and that was a huge tension between those who advocated for the adoption of free software by Brazil and those who thought we should do the sameness of always, buying, paying for others intelligence and, thanks God, prevailed in our country the issue and the decision of free software. We had to choose: or we were going to the kitchen to prepare this dish the way we wanted to eat, with the seasoning that we wanted, to give a Brazilian taste to our food, or we would eat what Microsoft wanted us to eat. Prevailed, simply, the idea of freedom. http://www.opensource.org/node/446 Expecting such leadership now in Kenya is a very tall order or you think we can have the President and/or Prime Minister make something close to that? Or a relevant Minister dare? Have a great week all. David On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Mwololo Tim <timwololo@gmail.com> wrote:
Ikua et al, I agree with you. However, our problem is that we do not have a common position amongst the stakeholders and that is why we have such a compromise in the policy statement. With or without the backing of huge $$ budgets, we must find a common position that is for the good of this country. Mwololo
On 7/3/09, Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do.
As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke:
Prof. Waema,
A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang><kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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-- 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 29899 - 00100, Nairobi, Kenya email: otwomad@gmail.com & otwoma@ncst.go.ke www.ncst.go.ke
Evans Your comment "In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do" is a misrepresentation of UK government policy on OSS. The Government's policy is as follows: Open Source Software 1. The Government will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions, 2. Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements. 3. The Government will expect those putting forward IT solutions to develop where necessary a suitable mix of open source and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be considered. 4. Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility. Non-Open Source Software 5. The Government will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software. In particular it will take exit, rebid and rebuild costs into account in procurement decisions and will require those proposing proprietary software to specify how exit would be achieved. 6. Where non open source products need to be purchased, Government will expect licences to be available for all public sector use and for licences already purchased to be transferable within the public sector without further cost or limitation. The Government will where appropriate seek pan-government agreements with software suppliers which ensure that government is treated as a single entity for the purposes of volume discounts and transferability of licences. Open Standards 7. The Government will use open standards in its procurement specifications and require solutions to comply with open standards. The Government will support the development of open standards and specifications. Re-Use 8. The Government will look to secure full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of commercial off the shelf products it procures, so as to enable straightforward re-use elsewhere in the public sector. Where appropriate, general purpose software developed for government will be released on an open source basis. 9. Where the public sector already owns a system, design or architecture the Government will expect it to be reused and that commercial arrangements will recognise this. Where new development is proposed, suppliers will be required to warrant that they have not developed or produced something comparable, in whole or in part, for the public sector in the past, or where they have, to show how this is reflected in reduced costs, risks and timescale. 10. When suppliers are proposing a third party product there should be full price transparency. If there is a pan-Government agreement there should be the option to source through this where doing so would maximise overall public sector value. The Government will expect to be charged only the cost the supplier incurs unless the supplier can clearly and transparently provide evidence of the additional value created. Victor On 7/3/09, Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote: As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do. As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars. -- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org <http://www.lpakenya.org/> Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke: Prof. Waema, A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance. Ndemo. Bwana Sang, You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things. Mwololo On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote: Tim, I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of "*OSS Champions*" on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed. To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers). I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible. Kind Regards B. K. Sang *From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/> @lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> [mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/> @ lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> ] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses Listers, Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy. tim mwololo On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote: There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie <http://camara.ie/> ) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time. Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month. They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast. They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses. Ikua -- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org <http://www.lpakenya.org/> Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>: forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote: From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into... The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities. Rgds, Manu "New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke <http://kadet.co.ke/> @lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa <mailto:kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke <http://kadet.co.ke/> @lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> ] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction. As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-) walu. --- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote: From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM 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 <http://education.go.ke/> @lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+bksang <mailto:kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang> <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/> @lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://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. See http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316 & for full story -- 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 <http://www.ncst.go.ke/> -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: ogange@yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ogange%40yahoo.com -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: jwalu@yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/emmanuel.khisa%40ka det . co.ke <http://co.ke/> _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: timwololo@gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/timwololo%40gmail.c om ---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world" _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: bitange@jambo.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/bitange%40jambo.co. ke ---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world" _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: ikua@lpakenya.org Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ikua%40lpakenya.org _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: timwololo@gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/timwololo%40gmail.c om _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: otwomad@gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/otwomad%40gmail.com -- 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. 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Granted, perhaps Evans meant to refer to "The Dutch government moves for open source" http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9833905-16.html and "Dutch government moves ahead with plans to promote use of open-source software" < http://news.theage.com.au/technology/dutch-government-moves-ahead-with-plans...
And NO! this matter is not rested at all... Alex On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Victor Gathara <v-gathara@dfid.gov.uk>wrote:
Evans
Your comment *"In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do" *is a misrepresentation of UK government policy on OSS.
The Government’s policy is as follows:
*Open Source Software* 1. The Government will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions, 2. Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements. 3. The Government will expect those putting forward IT solutions to develop where necessary a suitable mix of open source and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be considered. 4. Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility.
*Non–Open Source Software* 1. The Government will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software. In particular it will take exit, rebid and rebuild costs into account in procurement decisions and will require those proposing proprietary software to specify how exit would be achieved. 2. Where non open source products need to be purchased, Government will expect licences to be available for all public sector use and for licences already purchased to be transferable within the public sector without further cost or limitation. The Government will where appropriate seek pan-government agreements with software suppliers which ensure that government is treated as a single entity for the purposes of volume discounts and transferability of licences.
*Open Standards* 1. The Government will use open standards in its procurement specifications and require solutions to comply with open standards. The Government will support the development of open standards and specifications.
*Re–Use* 1. The Government will look to secure full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of commercial off the shelf products it procures, so as to enable straightforward re-use elsewhere in the public sector. Where appropriate, general purpose software developed for government will be released on an open source basis. 2. Where the public sector already owns a system, design or architecture the Government will expect it to be reused and that commercial arrangements will recognise this. Where new development is proposed, suppliers will be required to warrant that they have not developed or produced something comparable, in whole or in part, for the public sector in the past, or where they have, to show how this is reflected in reduced costs, risks and timescale. 3. When suppliers are proposing a third party product there should be full price transparency. If there is a pan–Government agreement there should be the option to source through this where doing so would maximise overall public sector value. The Government will expect to be charged only the cost the supplier incurs unless the supplier can clearly and transparently provide evidence of the additional value created.
Victor
On 7/3/09, Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. *In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do. * As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke:
Prof. Waema,
A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke@ lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa<kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> <kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang><kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= 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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&
for full story
--
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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This message was sent to: alexgakuru.lists@gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/alexgakuru.lists%40gmai...
Why is FOSS more appealing to tech entrepreneurs? Re:Use the big vendors to assist <http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1175723&cid=27336041> (Score:4 <http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/25/2020226#>, Interesting) by Bert64 (520050) <http://slashdot.org/%7EBert64> <bert@sla s h d o t.firenzee.com <mailto:bert%40sla+s+h+d+o+t.firenzee.com>> on Wednesday March 25, @06:28PM (#27336041 <http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1175723&cid=27336041>) Homepage <http://www.ev4.org/> Vendors should really rethink this... Whatever they sell, they will have to support anyway... If they sell an MS product they might get 6%, but if they sell OSS then they get 100% of whatever they sell it for... OSS isn't about zero cost, it's about freedom to use and modify the code in any way you choose. You can sell the OSS products for 7% of the cost of the MS products and still make more money off them.... It's win win for ISVs really, if the client wants to pay for something, let them pay for OSS and you keep the whole cost, and it can still be a cheaper option... If they don't want to pay then OSS is your only choice but you can afford to give it away for free because you didn't pay for it in the first place. Gakuru Alex wrote:
Granted, perhaps Evans meant to refer to "The Dutch government moves for open source" http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9833905-16.html and "Dutch government moves ahead with plans to promote use of open-source software" <http://news.theage.com.au/technology/dutch-government-moves-ahead-with-plans-to-promote-use-of-opensource-software-20071214-1gzj.html>
And NO! this matter is not rested at all...
Alex
On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Victor Gathara <v-gathara@dfid.gov.uk <mailto:v-gathara@dfid.gov.uk>> wrote:
Evans
Your comment /"In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do" /is a misrepresentation of UK government policy on OSS.
The Government’s policy is as follows:
1. *Open Source Software* The Government will actively and fairly consider open source solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions, 2. Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements. 3. The Government will expect those putting forward IT solutions to develop where necessary a suitable mix of open source and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be considered. 4. Where there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products, open source will be selected on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility.
5. *Non–Open Source Software* The Government will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software. In particular it will take exit, rebid and rebuild costs into account in procurement decisions and will require those proposing proprietary software to specify how exit would be achieved. 6. Where non open source products need to be purchased, Government will expect licences to be available for all public sector use and for licences already purchased to be transferable within the public sector without further cost or limitation. The Government will where appropriate seek pan-government agreements with software suppliers which ensure that government is treated as a single entity for the purposes of volume discounts and transferability of licences.
7. *Open Standards* The Government will use open standards in its procurement specifications and require solutions to comply with open standards. The Government will support the development of open standards and specifications.
8. *Re–Use* The Government will look to secure full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of commercial off the shelf products it procures, so as to enable straightforward re-use elsewhere in the public sector. Where appropriate, general purpose software developed for government will be released on an open source basis. 9. Where the public sector already owns a system, design or architecture the Government will expect it to be reused and that commercial arrangements will recognise this. Where new development is proposed, suppliers will be required to warrant that they have not developed or produced something comparable, in whole or in part, for the public sector in the past, or where they have, to show how this is reflected in reduced costs, risks and timescale. 10. When suppliers are proposing a third party product there should be full price transparency. If there is a pan–Government agreement there should be the option to source through this where doing so would maximise overall public sector value. The Government will expect to be charged only the cost the supplier incurs unless the supplier can clearly and transparently provide evidence of the additional value created.
Victor
On 7/3/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org <mailto:ikua@lpakenya.org>> wrote:
As far as the policy goes, I beg to disagree with Dr Ndemo. Its good to have a policy that makes the playing field level. That is a good start and that is the basic minimum that should be expected. On the other hand, its very important to understand that for the sake of the interests of a country, its important to have a policy that supports what we believe is good for us. If we are all convinced that OSS is good for us, then there is no-one to stop us from having a policy that supports OSS very openly. Too bad if some Proprietary software houses will not like it. But we must learn to protect our national interests agressively. The many countries in Europe and the rest of the world have gone this direction and they are enjoying the benefits of OSS. _In some developed countries like Germany and UK, the policies are there and they clearly state that (in Government) you can only buy proprietary software only if you cannot get a OSS option to do what you need to do. _ As for the MoE, its very hard to penetrate to them as some of us have learnt. At the same time, the OSS advocates we have in this country (us included) have very limited capacities as we do not receive any funding from anyone. This is one of the handicaps that OSS advocacy has. We volunteer our resources (time and money) and have to compete with software companies that are supported by Marketing budgets that run into the Billion Dollars.
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org <http://www.lpakenya.org/>
Quoting bitange@jambo.co.ke <mailto:bitange@jambo.co.ke>:
Prof. Waema, A good policy levels the play ground. What each party (Proprietary or OSS) does should not concern policy. That is why we need the procurement rules change to give everybody an equal chance.
Ndemo.
Bwana Sang,
You have a point. We do not have strong OSS champions, especially in the public sector - at least not as powerful as the evangilists for proprietary software. This situation is not helped by a non-committal policy. Let me chew over how we can change things.
Mwololo
On 6/30/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke <mailto:bksang@education.go.ke>> wrote:
Tim,
I agree with you to some extent, that we all need revision of the current ICT Policy to accommodate the key issues Kenya currently is focusing on. On OSS, I still doubt capacity of “*OSS Champions*” on the issue having observed in the past one year, how an opportunity to have 210 secondary schools each equipped with 25 PCs and use both proprietary software and OSS (Funds provided for) progressed.
To date, no OSS proponents have brought any concept on how MOE can facilitate the adoption and use of OSS. There are some brilliant OSS solutions, particularly supporting teaching and learning (animated content -> good for illustrations of difficult concepts in some subjects) and development of content for use by all education and training stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and researchers).
I would like to acknowledge existence of sufficient leadership (policy and managers) to support modernization of education (ICT integration to teaching and learning). We may not have all necessary capacity yet for decision-makers to guide the process, but in partnership with all stakeholders, I believe OSS will definitely find a niche in the whole ICT integration exercise being spearheaded by MOE. Perhaps people like yourself and others in this network, could enlightened us on how OSS could be part of ICT integration efforts at an early stage as possible.
Kind Regards
B. K. Sang
*From:* kictanet-bounces+bksang=education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/>@lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/>[mailto: kictanet-bounces+bksang <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>=education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/>@ lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/>] *On Behalf Of *Mwololo Tim *Sent:* Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:02 AM *To:* Barnabas K. Sang *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Fw: RE: One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
Listers,
Our 2006 national ICT policy is silent on open source software (OSS). As we think of a review of this policy, which according to me is due due to a number of issues (Vision 2030, BPO, and many other developments), we should think seriously about a section on OSS policy.
tim mwololo
On 6/29/09, *Evans Ikua* <ikua@lpakenya.org <mailto:ikua@lpakenya.org>> wrote:
There is also Camara Kenya (the local office of camara.ie <http://camara.ie/>) that has done tremendous work in the area of putting hardware in schools, both Primary and Secondary, installing open source software, supporting them, and training the teachers. This in a short period of time.
Their work has mainly been in the coast region but they are also getting into the hinterland. They have about 150 volunteers from Ireland who have just come in and they will conduct trainings for about a month.
They have equipped schools in the whole of Lamu island, and many schools at the coast.
They are achieving much more by using FOSS as a computer installed with Linux gives much more to a student as opposed to one installed with Windows. Because they are not spending a penny on software licenses, they are able to supply like twice the number of PCs than if they were to have the schools buy licenses.
Ikua
-- Evans Ikua Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org <http://www.lpakenya.org/>
Quoting Walubengo J <jwalu@yahoo.com <mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com>>:
forwarded--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke <mailto:emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke>> wrote:
From: Emmanuel Khisa <emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke <mailto:emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke>> Subject: RE: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu@yahoo.com <mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com>> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 10:11 AM
And Project Discovery Kenya has been able to train more that 200 primary school teachers over the last five years in conjunction with Institute of Software technologies...I also know that similar training went on in Yala Division last April for Primary school teachers in the division organised by the Computers for Schools. On the subject of lack of adequate professors, I will leave that to Academicians and those keen on interrogating academics, I however would like the ICT training to move from over concentration with the academics and more to the more handson...more like incubator based learning approach...While the Far East economies have good universities, they still put more premium on handson skills...It is sad that even our graduate engineers let alone IT graduates (who by the way take a lot of flack) cannot invent or think outside the box...I mean no invention ever comes out of these highly restricted courses yet only a select few universities dare to venture into...
The answer in my opinion lies in building skills that are more practical and focussed on creating entrepreneural opportunities.
Rgds,
Manu
"New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." P Before printing, think about the Environment and your responsibilities -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa=kadet.co.ke <http://kadet.co.ke/>@lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+emmanuel.khisa <mailto:kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa><kictanet-bounces%2Bemmanuel.khisa> =kadet.co.ke <http://kadet.co.ke/>@lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/>] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:41 AM To: emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke <mailto:emmanuel.khisa@kadet.co.ke> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject,varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
I agree that something is happening within the High-School teaching fraternity. Last April, Multimedia University College trained 80 high school headteachers from Samburu and I think Transmara Districts, giving them basic ICT skills...am aware Strathmore University, IAT etc also do such trainings regularly...It may not be enough, but its definitely a good kick in the right direction.
As for the University Level IT faculty staff. Unfortunately the statistics are likely to be true. You can count the number of IT Professors in this country on your three fingers ;-)
walu.
--- On Wed, 6/24/09, Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke <mailto:bksang@education.go.ke>> wrote:
From: Barnabas K. Sang <bksang@education.go.ke <mailto:bksang@education.go.ke>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an
accreditation system for ICT courses
To: jwalu@yahoo.com <mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com> Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>> Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:32 PM
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 <http://education.go.ke/>@lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+bksang <mailto:kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang> <kictanet-bounces%2Bbksang>= education.go.ke <http://education.go.ke/>@lists.kictanet.or.ke <http://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 <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 <mailto:otwomad@gmail.com>> wrote:
From: David Otwoma <otwomad@gmail.com <mailto:otwomad@gmail.com>>
Subject: [kictanet] One subject, varying quality - We lack an accreditation system for ICT courses
To: ogange@yahoo.com <mailto:ogange@yahoo.com>
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto: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.
See
http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316& <http://www.eastandard.net/education/InsidePage.php?id=1144017693&cid=316&>
for full story
--
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 <mailto:otwomad@gmail.com> & otwoma@ncst.go.ke <mailto:otwoma@ncst.go.ke>
www.ncst.go.ke <http://www.ncst.go.ke/>
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-- 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 29899 - 00100, Nairobi, Kenya email: otwomad@gmail.com <mailto:otwomad@gmail.com> & otwoma@ncst.go.ke <mailto:otwoma@ncst.go.ke> www.ncst.go.ke <http://www.ncst.go.ke>
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participants (7)
-
bitange＠jambo.co.ke -
David Otwoma -
Evans Ikua -
Gakuru Alex -
Mwololo Tim -
S.Murigi Muraya -
Victor Gathara