Govt picks trainers for Class One laptop project

Secondary school teachers have been picked to train their primary school colleagues on how to use laptops for Standard One classes to be rolled out early next year.

The Ministry of Education Thursday began training the 150 trainers, most of whom were picked from secondary schools.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang said the teachers were heavily skilled in Information Technology and capable of conducting the training at the county level.

“We picked the very best and we believe they will do a good job in imparting required skills on teachers who will be tasked with rolling out the programme,” said Dr Kipsang.

The master trainers were called for a two-day polishing up before they are released to begin grassroots’ training.

The training came as the ministry said the winning supplier of the laptops would be named next week after completing evaluation of the tender bids.

Dr Kipsang Thursday said they would name the winner on “Monday or Tuesday” after resolving the challenge that came up with the bidding.

The bids had attracted controversy after it was revealed that none of the bidders quoted amounts under the price brackets mentioned by the government.

However, the PS said they had resolved the issue and the firm to supply the machines would now be revealed.

Three teachers will be picked from each of the 20,000 primary schools and will undergo the training before the programme gets rolled out next January.

After the two-day instruction that began Thursday at the Kenya Education Management Institute in Nairobi, they will be distributed across the country to train the 60,000 teachers who will be handling the laptop subjects.

At least 700 teachers from Nairobi County will be trained by the end of this month while the rest of the counties will handled before the end of the year.

The trainers were picked through rigorous criteria in conjunction with the Teachers Service Commission.

“We would like to make sure we are ready to go by December. The government is committed in seeing this project succeed,” said Dr Kipsang when he opened the training Thursday.

Teachers who spoke at the ceremony promised to help the government successfully implement the project, a flagship undertaking for the Jubilee administration.

The PS said the training of the teachers would be done near the schools to avoid disruption of the learning calendar.

“We do not want to disrupt the teaching calendar and also the examination dates. We will make sure we do the training in local stations where the trainees will be able to teach and attend training at the same time,” said the PS.

The project has also been boosted by the completion of the curriculum to be used for training.

TSC and Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development spearheaded the development of the laptop curriculum and teachers’ training manuals.