However much I personally appreciate integration of ICT in education, I believe that the Jubilee Government's campaign pledge on Solar-powered laptops for each standard one pupil starting January next year is a misplaced opportunity. I wonder who deserves to be given the laptop first, the teacher or the pupil. May be this is one of the reasons why teachers are so aggrieved such that they are even agitating for higher salaries. The Government should have first started by empowering the teachers by retraining them through in-service programmess on matters of ICT and probably buy each teacher a laptop. After this, the Government could focus on establishing computer laboratories stocked with desktop/laptop computers where every pupil in the school would have an opportunity to use the computers. This would be cheaper and even the computers would be secure than the laptops whose security is still a monster in waiting. Unless there is a ill motive about the project, Uhuruto Government should heed to the advice of experts on how to go about this lest the project end up being a white elephant project or one of the biggest scandals ever executed in Kenya. Personally I would be willing to give a free consultancy to the Government on how to go about this project.
