Jubilee’s digital literacy programme awarded another Sh13.4 billion
Class One pupils at Mwangea Primary School in Voi use digital tablets during a lesson. PHOTO | FILE
The digital literacy programme is set to get Sh13.4 billion for the second year in a row, which will raise the amount of money spent on the flagship Jubilee project to Sh26.8 billion by the end of the coming financial year.
The funds will go towards financing the free tablets project, a flagship Jubilee government initiative that was initially supposed to receive Sh51 billion disbursed over three years.
The money will be used “for the deployment of laptops to schools, development of digital content, building capacity of teachers and rolling out computer laboratory (sic) for primary schools throughout the country,” read the budget estimates in part.
Lower primary students in 23,951 public primary schools are supposed to receive free tablets pre-loaded with educational material in five examinable subjects. 1.2 million devices were supposed to be rolled out in the first phase of the project, 100,000 of which are to be assembled locally.
Roll out of the devices began in August 2016 with the government importing ready-made tablets amid delays in local production. So far, the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology says that it has 758,552 tablets in the country while 385,435 have been installed.
The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and Moi University won government contracts to assemble the tablets. While Moi University is yet to complete work on its factory, JKUAT began production in December 2016 and had by January produced 2,000 tablets.Its assembly plant has the capacity to produce 600 tablets per day.
“Moi University is setting up a brand new local assembly line at their Rivatex complex in Eldoret. They aim to start assembly in March 2017,” said the ICT ministry in a statement to the Business Daily.
The university is supposed to provide tablets for primary schools in 26 counties and it is unclear what stop-gap measures will be put in place to mitigate the delay. The rest of the counties will be served by JKUAT.
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