State mulls leasing digital devices for public schools

The State is considering leasing digital devices for public schools in a bid to cut procurement costs and boost access for learners.

Ministry of ICT cabinet secretary Joe Mucheru has directed the ICT Authority to work with the banking sector to develop a leasing model for devices that can be deployed to support the digital literacy programme.

Under leasing, the government pays a fee to respective dealers who undertake to provide a certain number of insured and serviced digital devices over several years.

“Consider adopting a model for leasing devices so that they are available in schools as opposed to buying them,” he said on Wednesday during the launch of the first coding syllabus in Kenya.

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This comes days after the ICT Authority and online publishing firm Kodris Africa inked a deal to implement the coding curriculum in select schools across the country.

Coding, which is also known as programming, involves translating human intentions into commands that can be understood by computers.

The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has approved the coding curriculum by Kodris, in what is expected to be a boost for the government’s Digital Literacy Programme (DLP).

Through the DLP, the ICT Authority has distributed 1.2 million laptops and tablets to learners across the country.

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Digital literacy is a key plank of the competency-based curriculum that has now been rolled out in Grade Six, the final level of the primary school cycle.

ligadwah@ke.nationmedia.com