Tech or Talk? The Competition for ICT in Education in North Kamagambo

I am now approaching my last week in Lwala, and I think that things have finally started coming together in terms of a plan to assist in the e-Reader program here at Lwala. Although I have spent many of my last posts regarding other issues throughout Kenya and the world, I want to return to the topic of hand--ICT in education, and to discuss the new DigiSchool Programme. For those that are unaware, the DigiSchool program is the 'brand name' of the Digitial Literacy Programme, which I have discussed in past posts. This program is not related to the French digital education company by the same name, but rather something brought together by the Kenyan government in collaboration with a number of partners and trusts. Kenyan DigiSchool provides laptops and tablets to teachers and students from class 1 through 3 in primary school, and is the extension of a pilot project from this past year (2016). Although originally designed to provide laptops to both teachers and students, the transition to student tablets occurred during the 2015-2016 budget development, saving nearly Kshs 7 billion. Although the original plan was to assemble laptops and tablets in Kenya with collaboration from private partners, the government ordered over 1 million tablets from Chinese company Huawei for the original pilot phase of the project. In its continued rollout, the government has partnered with Jomo Kenyatta University of Algriculture and Technoloy, as well as Moi University to develop plants to assemble their own tablets--largely by importing components and assembling them at plants in Kenya.

*For motivation reasons, Digischool aims at providing ICT competencies to the next generation of students--and all teachers. To clarify, the program is under an "Education for ICT" mindset--no computer science classes et al. are being provided at that young of an age. Rather, it is under an "ICT for Education" mindset, such that students are becoming familiar with the use of ICT, but for educational achievement outcomes. Hence, teachers are provided laptops that contain books, lessons, and software for data feedback from students. Students are provided tablets that are connected to the teacher's via a LAN connection, through which the teacher can provide instructions et al for the students--creating a 'flipped classroom' type environment. Also, Safaricom has offered to provide free internet to members of the pilot and expansion project to connect tablets and laptops for schools. While all of this sounds amazing, the rollout and lack of outcomes so far remain an issue for measuring the success of the program. Considering the large amount of private partnerships domestically involved (via trusts) and the decentralization of distribution and training, many counties are struggling to keep pace with the project. I say this from personal experience, as I am now seeing these devices in the North Kamagambo school community. Recently, I've been seeing many of these packages showing up in schools when I have gone to do observations of the e-Reader program, and am somewhat baffled at the inconsistency of the implementation of the rollout. Although the devices are meant to be a 1:1 ratio for schools, it is clear that they are not because of the continual production of devices (supposedly for rolling up to upper primary) and from the classroom observations themselves. Despite at least one teacher using a laptop at each school, the inconsistency in attendance further has inhibited the use of this in actual classrooms throughout the community, since use of the teacher laptops and devices are linked to that one teacher. However, this has been changing over the course of the past few weeks, as many teachers at each of the schools I observe have been attending 'ICT trainings' at the county level. While these trainings will prove invaluable down the line to ensure that students can continue to use these devices in their schools, the trainings themselves are causing more absences of teachers at these schools, since many of them take place during the school day or shortly afterwards. Further, considering how short-staffed many of these schools are, there are no substitute teachers, and classrooms are frequently left with students doing busy work--if they even decide to stay at the school. The solution may seem obvious--why not have the trainings after school or during breaks? It is not quite that simple. First, let's consider the transportation to each of these events--considering that trainings are occurring at the county or district level, transportation may take anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. Teachers will have to hire a boda boda (30 minutes) to take them to a main road, and then catch a matatu to nearby Rongo or Migori (for the county seat of Migori--at least another hour) and another boda boda to whichever school or office the training is held. Also, good luck trying to have a training on the weekend or during a break--many Kenyans spend that time, in rural areas, attending to homestead chores and their families. On top of the scheduling issue, we have yet to address infrastructure concerns. Although the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) and many schools are either in the process of connecting or already connected to the national grid, frequent power outages cause issues for connectivity. Add to that the fact that there is one tower that serves all of the North Kamagambo region, which frequently has issues, and much of the required resources for the programme are in flux. The result? Although there has been considerable required trainings and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for the 'soft'--i.e. human--side of the programme, the hard tangibles are missing. At many schools that I have visited, tablets and laptops alike sit in the shipping boxes they were sent in weeks ago. 

Unfortunately, many of the issues that face Digischool also face the e-Reader program funded by LCA, and make them more complicated. While power supply has always been an issue, now government devices through Digischool are competing for outlets with the e-Readers provided by Worldreader and LCA. When I have gone to schools, teachers are absent for a 'meeting' or 'training' regarding the new program--leading to competing M&E as well. These competitions for resources hint at an underlying issue--the lack of insrastructure. What worries me most about the situation, however, is the political motivation. At a meeting at another local school in North Kamagambo, we discusssed some of the issues with both of these programs. As an example, on top of the ICT trainings, many teachers also had to meet with the local educational board members in advance of the election as an 'interview' regarding the ICT program. At one of these meetings, the head teacher of said school mentioned that the transformer blew a few weeks ago. Members of Kenya Power had taken away the old transformer, but it had never returned a new transformer. Despite the head teacher addressing this to the board, who acknowledged it as an important issue (for Digischool), they refused to get involved and informed the teacher they would have to follow up with Kenya Power personally. Unfortunately, this is common. Even more recently at LCA, local electricians tried to use extortation to get more money from LCA for fixing some of the power lines, which had been paid for ahead of time. Hence, there is an important need for a number of things to be addressed in order for Digischool to succeed--outside of political motivations. First, the government must follow up on commitments and avoid corruption in the elctrification of its rural areas (and related ISPs). Second, M&E partners need to maintain open communication with school staff to support this roll out. Finally, there needs to be in-school support to accommodate teacher absences, so that academic achievement gains measured from the program accurately reflect the success of Digischool, and don't serve as a substitute for teaching but an addendum to it. Although I do have some frustration in the prioritization of Digischool over e-Readers for many of these schools, I am excited about the alignment of ICT devices through all primary levels to advance ICT competency. Next week, I will be hosting professional development sessions for these teachers, which I will attempt to keep to the afternoons. I hope that all teachers will attend, especially since many have voiced that they wished to attend such sessions but have been unable to in the past. I hope that, with my final week, I can implement trainings that will help not just the teachers, but staff as well in this transition to ICT throughout primary schools. 

*http://icta.go.ke/digischool/nyeri/