eLearning Activities for Kenya

Nairobi, April 2006 - (by James Sankale, Kenya Ministry of education) Use of ICTs in education can be a useful tool to help promote and enable educational reform. Furthermore, ICTs are both important motivational tools for learning and can promote greater efficiencies in education systems and practices.




Kenya has realised the importance of ICT education, and as a result, the government has set up ICT structures in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions in order to build an ICT-literate community.

The country has defined its National ICT policy. The vision includes creating an e-enabled and knowledge-based society by the year 2015.

The policy recognizes that young people are the future workforce and leading creators and earliest adopters of ICTs; "They must therefore be empowered as learners, developers, contributors, and future decision makers."

The MoE policy on ICT is to integrate it into education and training systems in order to prepare the learner and staff of today for the Kenyan economy to enhance the nation's ICT skills (MoE Sessional Paper No. 1, 2005).

The New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is working closely with the Kenyan government through MoE to introduce eLearning in primary and secondary school. Six secondary schools have been selected initially to serve as demo schools for the implementation of the e-school project.

eSchools have access to computers and internet facilities. Other eLearning initiatives in Kenya include:

  • Click online - Kenya is piloting a trial project using handheld computers that is geared toward reducing the costs of education in poor communities;
  • School net initiative;
  • SMS technology to enhance data collection and provide in-support for teachers (ongoing).