Digital school of distinction workshop in Nyamira county.

A two-day stakeholders conference of the African digital schools initiative (ADSI) in Nyamira county ended on Tuesday this week. The conference was well attended by school principals, deputy principals, board of management chairpersons and parent association chairpersons.

Participants following the proceedings of the workshop

During the conference the participants were taken through the road-map of the ADSI since its inception in the year 2016. The success, the challenges and the way forward was discussed at length by the stakeholders. The discussions were spearheaded by the panelists who included Dr. Erick Wara (principal, Nyaikuro secondary school), Mr. Jared Monyancha (principal, St. Thomas Moore secondary school), Madam Linet Akenga (principal, Metamaywa secondary school) and Madam Lydia Onyoni (principal Rangenyo girls secondary). The moderators were Mr. George Waithaka (the county project coordinator) and Madam Esther Mwiyeria (ADSI Kenya project manager).

Moderators and panelists during the workshop. From left; Mr. George Waithaka, Madam. Lydia Onyoni, Madam. Linet Akenga, Dr. Erick Wara, Mr. Jared Monyacha and Madam. Esther Mwiyeria.

Dr. Wara, while appreciating the positive impact brought about the ADSI model, he introduced the fact that learners should be allowed to use mobile phones. He argued that phones are a good source of digital content although they may also be abused by learners. ‘’… of course in my school there are computer students who have their own flash disks for the sake of their projects, again this is also prone to abuse…’’ said Dr. Wara. This indicates that mobile phones are not the only technological devices that can abused by learners. The pressure to use these devices is there but there is also the challenge of control. We cannot discard the fact that learners access phones while they are away from school. According to Dr. Wara, the big challenge now is to distinguish between those learners who want to genuinely use the mobile phones to access the digital content and those who want to abuse them.

‘’When you left your house, did you leave the knives in the house? did you leave the gas cylinders? Are you thinking about them?” Madam Esther asked the participants. She went on to answer the questions that even though we have left those items in our houses where children are, we are not thinking about them because we know that the items will be put into good use. She went on to remark that maybe we have not reached there with our learners that they can be left with ICTs and put them into good use.

While addressing the participants, Mr. Jerome Morrissey, the GESCI CEO, did not resonate with the idea of learners accessing and using mobile phone. He cited the issues of cybercrimes and misuse of the phone by the learner. He argued that if the learners have to use the mobile phones, then the content that they can access should be filtered. This means that the schools will have to be connected to a particular network which can be very costly. Mr. Morrissey encouraged teachers to incorporate at least one 21^st century skill in each of their lessons. He argued that the 21^st century skills cannot be taught separated, they have to be include the subjects already in the curriculum.

GESCI CEO, Mr. Jerome Morrissey

Away from the debate of mobile phones, the participants, panelists and invited guests commended the ADSI model for its numerous positive impact it has had on the schools where it is being implemented. The invited guests who addressed the participants included Mr. Wilson Koros (Nyamira TSC county director) and Dr. Anyan’g (C.D.E Nyamira). Madam Esther challenged the participating schools to find a mechanism of holding the hand of the other schools that are not on the program so that that they can also reap from the benefits of ADSI model.

C.D.E Nyamira county, Dr. Anyan'g (third from right)

The county project coordinator, Mr. Waithaka thanked all the participants for attending the conference and participating actively. The conference ended with the participating schools awarded certificate of e-confidence stage in the implementation of the ADSI model.

Mr. Mabeya, the school based coordinator at Gesiaga secondary school receives the school e-confident certificate from the program manger, Mr. Senthil Kumar.