When the president of Republic of Kenya made the announcement on Sunday 15th March 2020 that school will be closed indefinitely, the news was received with mixed reaction of excitement to have a break at the same time the thoughts of how long it will take? What next? The school administrators, teachers, parents and also learners were left to wonder the next move to continue with learning. There are schools that were quick to adapt to remote learning, especially the private schools where learning picked and it became the norm. The second announcement came from the Ministry of Education that learning will go on for all learners through broadcast and online. Now what are the facts about remote learning in Kenya?
ICT Literacy skills in Teachers, Learners and parents
In 2015 the introduction of the laptop project led to the training of teachers in ICT. According to Standard Digital Article “The Ministry of Education and Teachers Service Commission have begun training teachers across the country as the Government prepares to roll out the laptop program for Standard One pupils. The training targets three teachers in every public primary school. The three are the school head teacher, a Standard One teacher and another teacher who is preferably computer literate.” Secondly according to Kenya Vision 2030 “In order to achieve the Vision’s goal of mainstreaming information technology in schools, the sector will establish a computer supply program to schools in order to equip students with modern ICT skills. The program will target 20,000 public primary schools, 4,000 public secondary schools, 22 TTCs, 2 diploma colleges and the 7 public universities.” Currently most of the teacher training colleges and university are integrating ICT literacy.
These has led to the increase in the number of ICT literate teachers. Not to forget that most Kenyans are self-taught champions in technology, the exposure enable them to learn technology. On the other hand the question still remains is the numbers adequate to roll out effective remote learning for all learners and also do the acquired skills enable effective remote learning?
The Use of Radio and Television
According to John Mutua on Business Daily Article “The popularity of radio has grown over time and opened a window of immense opportunities in the socio-economic spheres reaching out to Kenyans who cannot afford television sets and other media. Given that about 95 per cent of Kenyan households use radio as their primary source of news and information”. Article by Bedah Mengo on Africa News “About 4.3 million households in the East African country now own TV sets, latest statistics from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) showed Tuesday, up from about 3.5 million when the country shifted to digital migration in February 2015. Some 66 percent of Kenya’s population now receive TV signal up from half the number when there was analogue signal, according to the regulator.” However according to World Bank Kenya now has the highest electricity access rate in East Africa: total access stands at 75% both from grid and off-grid solutions, according to the recent Multi-Tier Framework Energy Access Survey Report. But there are a quarter of Kenyans still lack access to electricity.”
These beg the question on accessibility of the 25% to the media and at what cost? Can they afford? The other concern is the effectiveness of using the media, how can the teacher check if he/she has achieved the objective, how to have a balanced lessons to cover all the content for all the classes and lastly to be able to manage the learners.
Internet and Smart Phone Use
Standard Digital Report by Frankline According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) census report, the number of mobile users stands at 20 million, with the majority of them being women. At the same time, just one in five Kenyans has access to the internet and only 3.7 per cent of the country’s population engages in e-commerce. “The KPHC results show that 20.6 million of individuals aged 3 years and above owned a mobile phone,” reads the report. Out of this, 10.4 million are women while 10.2 million are men. “The data also shows that 22.6 per cent of individuals aged 3 years and above used the internet while 10.4 per cent used a computer,” says the report. The proportion of population aged 15 years and above who searched and bought goods and services online was 4.3 per cent. The report paint a picture that not all households can have access to internet. However many organizations and also government have provided free access to educational content online, these has boosted the access. The concern now is the household without smart phones and if available how can it be shared among the children in the household.
Conducive Environment for Learning
According to Dr. Kecia Ray Article in Tech&learning “It is important to note that in remote learning environments, versus virtual learning environments, the learner and teacher are not accustomed to having distance during instruction. This may pose a challenge to both teacher and learner that can be accommodated for through specific support structures.” These bring the question on how we can adjust our curriculum to fit this mode n how much content can be delivered through this mode.