UNESCO contributes to Kenya’s Digital Literacy Programme by capacitating primary school teachers
© UNESCO
UNESCO organized a two-day workshop on revision of the Kenya UNESCO Information and Communication Technology Competency Framework for Teachers (KICT-CFT) on 15 and 16 June 2016 in Nairobi. The objective of the workshop was to improve the KICT-CFT online course in preparation for the training of teachers within the national roll-out of the Digital Literacy Programme. This course is part of the inter-regional ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT CFT) Harnessing OER project implemented by the Communication and Information (CI) Sector of UNESCO.
The Digital Literacy Programme is Kenya’s national ICT program that aims to improve learning and build 21st century skills among primary school students through the use of digital technologies in education. Through the Digital Literacy Programme, it is expected that all 22,000 public primary schools in Kenya will be equipped with 1.2 million digital devices by the end of 2017.
Successful implementation of the Digital Literacy Programme will depend upon the capacity of primary school teachers and education managers to fully harness the power of technology to enhance student learning. Therefore, in light of the Framework Agreement signed by the Government of Kenya and UNESCO on cooperation in the implementation of the Digital Literacy Programme, UNESCO will assist the Ministry of Education in developing capacities of over 22,000 teachers and 22,000 head teachers in all public primary schools, 1,000 field officers, as well as fostering the use of accessible ICTs in Kenya.
The KICT-CFT online course has been developed and piloted nationwide in two groups of selected teachers. The second cohort of 59 teachers drawn from 47 counties received face-to-face and online trainings from January to May 2016. From the feedback gathered, they felt the course was relevant and beneficial to their professional development. They also expressed the importance of online facilitators for coordinating remote collaboration among the cohort.
“The teachers really appreciated the course, up to the end,” said Aggrey O. Joab, one of the online facilitators from KICD, “The cohort’s online chat platform is still vibrant even after the course came to an end.”
At the workshop, online facilitators, content developers and technical experts made revisions in the course materials and facilitator guide according to teachers’ feedback. A strategic plan was also developed to guide implementation of the DLP at the next stage. The workshop brought together partners from the Ministry of Education, Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA), Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI), National ICT Innovation and Integration Centre (NI3C) and Airtel Kenya.
Ivy O. Maina, course administrator from TSC, commented that the workshop was “very useful and particularly helpful for the online facilitators to better understand the course.”
The ‘ICT CFT Harnessing OER’ project , implemented by the Communication and Information Sector of UNESCO, aims to harness OER for the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers to contribute to national educational goals for building Knowledge Societies. This project, launched in 2013, and implemented in 3 world regions, aims to harness OER for the ICT Competency Framework for Teachers to contribute to national educational goals for building Knowledge Societies. It support the objective of the CI Sector as mandated by UNESCO Member States at the 38th UNESCO General Conference to have advanced Universal access to information through Open Solutions, and namely to support teachers in effectively harnessing ICT in their professional Practice to promote quality learning environments.
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