This is why Information and Communication Technology (ICT) becomes the refrain whenever talk about development comes up any where in the world.
With growing globalisation, ICT has become an integral part in developing a highly effective human resource through quality education.
To achieve this feat in education, ICT becomes a crucial medium for curriculum delivery. Technically known as e-learning.
E-learning is the integration of Information and Communication Technology in the learning and teaching process.
In Kenya, the Ministry of Education, in an endeavour to provide ICT access to all learners published a National Education Policy, contained in the Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005, where ICT in Education was given prominence.
A comprehensive National ICT Strategy for Education and Training was launched in 2006, after the launch of e-Government strategy in 2004.
Speaking during the launch of the strategy on August 2, 2006, then acting Education Minister Dr Noah Wekesa said the Government saw ICT in three main broad categories: e-Government, Education Management Information System (EMIS) and e-learning.
In education, the onus was for the Ministry of Education to play a leading role in the provision of ICT to all educational institutions in the country through collaboration with sector partners.
To actualise this policy, the ministry in collaboration with development partners came up with a five year programme for the entire sector, the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP) which defined a road map for investment in e-learning programmes and suggested provisional budgets to support various education and training needs.
Through KESSP, the Government was to draw support to supplement available resources for the implementation of a robust ICT Investment programme.
In this processes, the emphasis was on the development of a local e-content for local institutions and which provides short and long-term strategies for the country. This could be achieved through investments, capacity building and effective coordination.
In the fullness of time, a number of programmes have been developed towards ensuring integration of ICT in education.
A Technical Team was appointed to develop the Zero Draft of the National ICT Strategy on the November 28, 2005 comprised of Government officials, scholars, Public and Private Sectors, donor representatives and consultants.
This formed a partnership forum with the corporate world in which various CEOs from the Public and Private Sector would help mobilise resources for e-learning under the Kenya ICT Trust Fund.
"This model borrows closely with NEPAD E-Africa Commission E-Schools initiative, which facilitates establishment of model e-schools in Africa, using consortia model," Dr Wekesa told participants at the forum.
The initiative was aimed at creating more than 600,000 e-schools by the year 2010.
At the same time, the ministry also formed a committee with membership drawn from all key sub-sectors and strategic partners in ICT in education. Its mandate was to coordinate the implementation of the National ICT strategy in line with all Government ICT policies and strategies.
The committee was commissioned during the August 2 launch of the National ICT Strategy for Education and Training.
With time, the ministry has been developing guidelines and policies to guide e-learning and setting standards and deploying various forms of ICTs, facilitate the selection of education institutions to be equipped. This has been an on going process for some time and seeks to come up with a checklist for ensuring proposed initiatives in the sector are sustainable.
Other measures have included enacting policies to protect schools from exploitation by business people. Of concern here has been that as a developing country, it is important that Kenya gets shielded from being used as dumping ground of obsolete ICT equipment from developed countries.
According to Wekesa, this was in response to the many complaints from schools on fraud agreements on provision of ICT services and Equipment to Schools and other Education Institutions.
To ascertain the effectiveness of these initiatives, the ministry proposed the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation programme.
"Value from investments has to be documented and shared with stakeholders in order to build confidence and a business case for the public and private sector partners and to avoid any wastage of resources," said Wekesa.
These initiatives have seen several key achievements made in e-learning programmes in the country, which have included:
- The establishment and Launch of Kenya ICT Trust Fund;
- Support from World Bank towards EMIS;
- Support from development partners including USAID for the sector assessment and documentation of ICTs in Education Options Paper;
- Automation of Form One Selection in 2006 and 2007;
- Automation of P1 Teacher Selection process;
- The Government has also provided Sh213 million to 142 schools to purchase ICT equipment to function as model institutions for the e-learning programme;
- Launch of the NEPAD e-Schools programme through consortia lead by Oracle and Microsoft;
- Efforts towards digitisation of curriculum by the Ministry through the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE);
- Fund raising and donation in-kind through the Kenya ICT Trust Fund, amounting to Sh13.5 million;
- Corporate Consortia to establish and launch Mukuru ICT Centre led by British Airways, Microsoft, Revlon, Cisco amongst.
And at the recently concluded International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training-e-learning in Africa held in Nairobi, Education Minister Prof. George Saitoti said the Government plans to fully integrate ICT-aided teaching and learning into the current education programmes.
The conference was important in many ways - coming at a time when the country is laying solid strategies for the future development, as highlighted above, e-learning is already being seen as the only viable avenue through which the country's Education For All (EFA) goals will be achieved.
Prof Saitioti highlighted a number of milestones so far achieved in adopting e-learning, even as the sector still faces a myriad of challenges.
According to Prof Saitoti, ICT programmes already in place include one launched at the University of Nairobi dubbed the Wedusoft through which the university seeks to provide e-learning programmes within and off campus.
"At the same university, many of the staff who have been trained on e-learning have now embarked on e-content development projects and to-date, over 62 complete electronic courses are on interactive learning CDs." These, according to the minister are already being accessed by students to supplement study materials.
Moi University is developing an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) initiative where e-learning will be implemented at its satellite campuses in different parts of the country. Moi University has opened new satellite campuses including one in Nairobi and Narok.
The university is also a member of the Kenya Education Network (KENET) whose mission is to improve connectivity among the institutions of higher learning in Kenya.
Other highlights by Prof Saitoti to the conference included the plan by Egerton University to launch an e-learning programme in Nursing at its Nakuru Town Campus during the 2007/2008 academic year; Maseno University's plan to acquire Sh14 million ICT infrastructure in readiness for e-learning programmes, particularly video conferencing.
The minister said the Maseno University had identified nine learning centres countrywide which can be used as pilot centres for Open and Distance Learning (ODEL) programmes.
Another initiative being focused on by Maseno University is the inclusion of secondary schools and tertiary institutions under the NEPAD e-school initiative into its e-learning programmes.
According to Prof Saitoti, Kenyatta University has been offering Open Learning and School Based programmes since 2002.
"The university currently has eight learning centres countrywide namely: Parklands Campus (Nairobi), Mombasa, Nakuru, Kakamega, Kisumu, Garissa, Embu and Nyeri.
The programmes range from diploma to postgraduate.
Selected lecturers, he said have been trained on how to write and upload the teaching material on the e-Blackboard Learning and Management System (BLMS).
To make it effective, some of the students have been sensitised on how to interact through the e-platforms.
"The content posted on the BLMS is only accessible to the staff and students who are issued with passwords."
E-learning programmes have also been in operation at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) with the establishment of the School of e-learning in 2006.
"Among the objectives of the school is to improve the quality and increase the access to education to students who wish to study university courses from wherever they are.
Elsewhere, middle level colleges have adopted ICT in many of their programmes. The Kenya College of Communications and Technology (KCCT) has been on e-learning mode for in delivering many of its courses for some time now.
According to the minister, KCCT is setting up an on-line Testing Centre and introducing a variety of IT certifications so as to make it a one stop ICT training and certification centre in the country.
At the private universities, ICT programmes have been developed at the United States International University (USIU), Catholic University of East Africa, Daystar University and Strathmore University.
The Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) has also started offering e-learning through various programs, a move Saitoti said will improve access to education by many at highly reduced cost since factors like classrooms will no longer be considered.
Prof Saitoti said his ministry had spent Sh1.5million on e-learning.
The money was used to purchase computers and other teaching and learning equipment. He said his ministry has set aside a special budget that will ensure that a similar amount of money is committed to e-learning each year.
This, if fully adopted, will significantly reduce the cost of hiring teachers in the country.
It will also mean that the cost of reading material, mainly text books will also go down.
All in all, a-learning is a phenomenon that is here to stay and all effort must be made to make it work.
The Nairobi conference was attended by more than 1200 participants from over 82 different countries spanning 5 continents (with over 70% from Africa), 40 exhibitors and sponsors, 12 countries and 308 speakers and chairpersons from 55 countries.
Universities from all over the Continent made presentations ICT good practice and eLearning programmes, including the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, the African Virtual University, University of Zimbabwe, Tumaini University, Tanzania and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa to name but a few.
Speakers included representatives from development organisations such as UNESCO, UNEVOC, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) and the World Bank, as well as national and governmental institutions from Africa and Europe, Asia and America.
Autor(en)/Author(s): ET
Quelle/Source: Kenya Times, 04.06.2007
