Teachers hiding primary school tablets, official says

Robert Mugo, the acting chief executive officer of the ICT Authority, uses a tablet in a classroom with pupils at Mandera DEB Primary School in 2016. PHOTO | MANASE OTSIALO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Robert Mugo, the acting chief executive officer of the Information and Communication Technology Authority, said educators fear the portable computers will render them redundant.
  • He said they should not be worried since the devices were just learning aids.

Teachers are hiding tablets because they fear the portable computers will render them redundant, a government officer has said.

On Wednesday, Robert Mugo, the acting chief executive officer of the Information and Communication Technology Authority, said the educators should not be worried since the devices were just serving as learning aids.

“On May 19, the Ministry of Education issued a circular to all regional education co-ordinators and county directors of education asking them to launch all the devices,” said Mr Mugo. “Some schools have not been informing the parents about the devices so that they know of their existence.”

Speaking when he toured Moi University’s Rivatex assembling plant in Eldoret to assess the progress of the project, Mr Mugo said the government had deployed 230 ICT officers to various counties to coordinate the process that will see the local communities own the project.

SO FAR

Mr Mugo said that 862,000 tablets had so far been distributed to 16,275 schools. He noted that only 5,000 public schools were yet to receive digital learning devices.

“We are finishing this month,” said Mr Mugo. “Actually, for the remaining schools, these are their devices, which are locally manufactured.

“We did not want to import all the devices. It is intentional; we don’t want to set up such factories and continue to import electronics.”

The government intends to have more than 1.2 million tablets assembled at the Moi University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology this year.

In 2013, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, then the Jubilee presidential candidate and running mate respectively, promised a laptop to every Standard One pupil.