Eight years ago, I had the privilege of attending the 10th Microsoft in Education Global Forum, which focused on education technology, or EdTech, as it is popularly called nowadays.
I remember techies and innovation companies using the platform to wow participants – most of them school heads, educators, and policymakers – with demonstrations of technological inventions that were just fresh from the ‘kitchen’.
Microsoft Worldwide Education vice-president at the time, Anthony Salcito, in his keynote presentation made a statement that remains true today: “Your students are learning without you. Your students are reading without you. Your students are collaborating without you. Let’s convert this reality of learning into an engine for change in the way we teach.”
Teachers and other education stakeholders from Kenya who attended the forum – at least the few I interacted with – came back home beaming with excitement.
They resolved to start applying EdTech to facilitate teaching and learning.
Well, only a handful of private schools made some attempts at implementing EdTech. The majority, including public institutions, either didn’t appreciate the urgency of EdTech or were incapacitated in terms of resources. Looking back, had local industry stakeholders and policymakers taken Mr Salcito’s appeal more seriously at that time, the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown would not have disrupted learning in Kenya to the extent it did. But we had dropped the EdTech ball way before, continuing as normal with blackboard and chalk.
Now that Covid-19 has recently jolted the world into appreciating the value of EdTech even more, no nation should allow this realisation to fizzle out again.
In fact, EdTech is no longer a question of choice. It is a necessity, and Kenyan stakeholders had better come to terms with this reality. It is not just a nice thing to have as it might have been in 2014 and a few years after, but a need that should be fulfilled sooner than later.
It was therefore refreshing the other day (November 23), to watch the head of the National ICT Innovation and Integration Centre at the Ministry of Education, Francis Karanja, standing in front of diverse stakeholders at the Kenya EdTech Summit 2022 to declare that the government had recognised the reality that EdTech should get full support, and was open to partnerships towards enabling greater application of modern educational technologies in the country.
Hopefully, all government bodies involved in regulating EdTech in Kenya are speaking the same language on this. If they aren’t yet, they should start now.
They are about five of them, and moving with a single voice towards paving the way for EdTech investors and innovators to thrive would be the way to go.
It is important that this is done in a manner that would allow EdTech to penetrate all parts of the country, including far-flung rural areas.
Reason? EdTech is about improving access to decent education and promoting inclusivity.
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