Teachers are not happy with the current ongoing “Laptops for teacher’s program”. Joseph Karu-ga, chairman of the Kenya Primary School Heads Association (KEPSHA) says, “The so called laptops are more costly through the check off system because that is a negotiated deal between the Teacher’s Service Commission (TSC), the employer and Safaricom who sell the laptops,” Karuga says. In his opinion, KEPSHA should have been involved in the deal. Karuga was speaking at the ongoing KEPSHA annual meeting at the Sheikh Zayed Educational Center in Mombasa. The meeting attracted between 8,000 to 10,000 primary school heads. The Laptops for teachers programme is an initiative involving several firms including Safaricom, Intel, Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), Equity Bank, TSC and Microsoft. Safaricom sells the laptops in its country-wide retail shops. Intel funds the development of digital curriculum and syllabus by KIE which are then bundled into the laptops. Microsoft avails their software at a subsi-dized rate for bundling with the laptops, thus making them more affordable. The laptops are available through a TSC-assisted check off system where the teachers pay in monthly install-ments. Teachers can also acquire loans from Equity Bank which are then used to purchase the laptops.

According to Karuga, headteachers needed to have a voice in the ‘laptops for teachers’ programme to negotiate better terms that suited their needs. The reason being that despite that laptops purchased through the TSC-Safaricom check-off system cost substantially more com-pared to cash purchases. Therefore, despite the high demand for laptops by teachers, driven by the fact that most of the teachers are pursuing further studies, many teachers are put off by the programme and still prefer purchasing the laptops through their own sources.
Mark Matunga, Regional Education Manager for Microsoft East and Southern Africa says that Microsoft has partnered with Safaricom and Equity Bank in provision of laptops to teachers at an affordable cost. “We have bundled software and solutions worth between USD 300 and USD 400 and reduced them to an affordable cost of USD 25,” he says. Microsoft East and Southern Africa has been supporting the transformation of information globally through their Partners in Learning (PIL) programme. The program seeks to engage with the Ministry of Education on policies, digital content development though KIE, ensuring hardware availability, provision of connectivity and capacity building.
By last year, 3,000 schools were equipped with computers out of a total 30,000 schools. A further 1,000 schools have also got ICT equipment through the government’s Economic Stimulus Program (ESP). However, the government in this year’s budget reduced the amount allocated for the initiative. Digital curriculum is now available for secondary schools Form 1 to From 3 and upper primary schools from class 4 to class 8.  22,000 teachers out of 250,000 teachers had also been equipped with ICT training.
Karuga commends Microsoft for their initiative  to introduce ICT in learning. He is supportive of the use of ICT in education saying, “It is inevitable with the world been what it is, we cannot continue thinking about paper. A computer should be a tool for learning and teaching. Computer aided learning is more interactive. Instead of kids thinking about pornography, we can introduce programs for learning. If they are hooked to their TVs, we can use it for positive learning rather than banning them from watching the TV.”
Teachers who acquire laptops through the program get basic ICT training. Matunga mulls that in the future, the training might come with a certificate in an effort to incentive teachers to purchase the devices. Further efforts will try to obtain subsidies from the partners in an effort to lower the cost of the devices.
Matunga says that he is satisfied with Internet connectivity which has a national reach of be-tween 60% to 70%. He however states that much effort is needed to help schools tap into the connectivity. In his opinion, the above efforts have contributed to 15% total ICT penetration in the education sector.
Other efforts that Microsoft has put into the sector include the creation of email addresses for the 250,000 teachers. Over 15,000 teachers have already activated their email addresses with active usage standing at between 8,000 and 10,000 teachers. Microsoft is coming up with strategies to encourage even more usage. These include partnering with TSC to have official communication via email rather than paperwork.  Kenya National Examination Council directive to encourage electronic registration of students has also increased ICT awareness among teach-ers. Teachers can access their emails which are in the format “firstname.lastname@mwalimukenya.org” and use their TSC number to activate their email ac-counts at http://www.mwalimukenya.org.
Microsoft through the education PIL eventually hopes to have an educated workforce that will provide a ready market for its products.