Kenya is a beautiful country where most of the things that were done in the Education and Information Technology (IT) fronts between 2002 and 2012 were very progressive and inspiring.
However, the entry of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto to steer the country saw the worst forms of ‘cheap thinking’, road side declarations on important aspects of the above mentioned sectors i.e Education and IT.
The government had first promised free laptop or every child, the govt went on to launch electricity everywhere in the last mile project, the govt said IT in education was the next big thing and even went on to ‘shore up’ Technical skills by talking much about TVET with the help of the World Bank.
Fast forward to the coronavirus pandemic era, most lies are beginning to unravel.
The last mile project of electricity connectivity is only available on the government online portal and not on the ground. Beautiful pictures line up the portal showing successful electricity connections ets.
Meanwhile, Kenya Power PLC, the company mandated with supplying Kenyans with electricity has had scandals where metres are tampered with, customers are slapped with high electricity bills and no one is taken to court and jailed for these economic crimes.
In education, the schools that were connected with electricity, most of them don’t have good infrastructure to support the laptops initiative, laptops exists one again on the govt online portals.
In his second adress to Kenyans since Covid-19 came to these shores, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched a 4G internet in partnership with Google Loons in order to allow those working and studying from home to have it easy. There’s nothing as insensitive as that.
And here’s why:
Today, University of Nairobi (UoN) students took to Twitter to criticise the move by the UoN’s management to have them study online.
It is a crisp reminder of how Kenyan regime has failed in recent times. The regime has put forth glossy announcements in Nairobi about IT, Education and so forth, turns out the show-off was meant for the western world sponsors, such as Google Loon; Google just like that proverbial vulture, hovers above the carcass for a kill.
#UONboycotonlineclasses
— Marete wa Marete (@PatrickMarete2) March 30, 2020
Iam at my maternal home in upcountry .
Poor network connectivity. No electricity.
Simu tunacharge kwa vinyozi na zimefungwa zote ju ya Corona .How am I going to keep up with the online classes? Not unless mtuambie UoN ni university ya watu wa Nairobi tu! pic.twitter.com/XSBYiOQmJ7
For heaven’s sake, UoN is 85% composed of regular students who joined the institution through sheer success and government sponsorship. How do you expect such students to promptly facilitate these online classes??
— Aldody SR. (@bin_aldody) March 30, 2020
#UONboycotonlineclasses
The above just shows how the regime is completely removed from the reality on the ground suffered by its citizens.
The Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) has been a bad idea too, going by the way it is being implemented, it is an effort by the powers that be to keep on perpetuating mediocrity so as to contain the continuity of a citizenry that is now waking up from slumber and wants to shut it down.
An intellectual rgues it up the best, and i share:
“Last week, in only your second address on the pandemic, you launched an internet service. This was a serious error of judgement on your part, and distateful opportunism on the part of Google. People are worried about food, and you call the nation to attention to launch balloons? Many Kenyans have accused you of being a prisoner of your privileged upbringing. You continue to reinforce that perception. This was yet another one of many let them eat cake moment. It is one too many. Learn from it”, Economist David Ndii’s letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta
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