Header Ads

Joy As Gatuanyaga Primary Receive Tablets As Government Launch DLP In Kiambu County.


Energy PS Eng. Njoroge (centre), Thika MP alice Ng'ang'a and the area MCA Cecilia Wamaitha Mwangi join children and teachers of Gatuanyaga Primary School in the unveiling of the tablet programme in the school.

Pupils and parents in Gatuanyaga Primary School in Thika East Sub County could not hold back their joy after receiving tablets in the government’s free Laptop Project.

During the presentation of the devises, State Department of Energy Principal Secretary Eng. Joseph Njoroge affirmed the Jubilee Government’s commitment to the provision of conducive learning environment to all learners in the country through improving schools’ infrastructure and such programmes as the Digital Literacy Programmes (DLP).

“The overall objective of the Digital Literacy Programme is to prepare our children attain globally competitive education and its implementation is part of a wider plan to create a knowledge-based economy as envisaged in the Vison 2030. The DLP is targeting over 1 million STD one pupils in all the country’s Primary Schools but the government is looking on ways and means to upscale it to other classes in the upper primary,” said the PS.

He added that over 60,000 teachers had undergone computer literacy training countrywide as trainers of trainers in an effort to ensure that the ICT skills were fully introduced in the primary schools. The Education ministry had also developed digital content for classes 1, 2 and 3 and pre-installed it into these tablets for use by the learners.

He added that it was worth noting that the implementation of this programme came along with other milestone benefits as the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum had been mandated with the task to ensure its success by connecting all schools in the country with electricity.

“So far, 23,401 or 97% of all primary schools in the country are connected to power and in the next couple of months all schools will enjoy power supply. The fact that these schools are located in almost every part of this country means that most of the country, about 70%, will now be connected to the national grid. At the moment, over 520,000 households are connected to electricity as compared to 271,000 households in 2013, an increase of 91%. This not including the 375 light out of the projected 2,650 light to be installed under street lighting,” said Njoroge.

The schools’ DLP and electrification programmes, Njoroge said, had costed the government more than sh. 50 billion. He was happy that Thika Region had achieved an electricity connection access rate of 70% but promised to improve on it through the Last Mile Electrification Programme. He appealed to the people to take full advantage of power connections to create employment and empower themselves.

“In Kiambu alone, the government has spent more than sh. 700 million under the ‘Last Mile Project’ and much more in the school electrification programme. So, it will be meaningless if we as the beneficiaries don’t use this investment to enhance our lives. To the teachers and learners, to use the tablets and electricity to improve on the standard of education,” he said.

Area MP Alice Wambui Ng’ang’a appealed to the PS to work out a programme that would ensure all the residents of Thika Town Constituency were connected to the national grid. She also appealed to the Ministry to assist in the construction of more classrooms in Gatuanyaga Primary School so as to ease the problem of congestion in classes.

No comments:

Powered by Blogger.