HP Innovations in Education Grant
Introduction
In the month of May 2009, the Faculty of IT (FIT) of Strathmore University was awarded the
HP Innovations in Education Grant by Hewlett Packard. The HP grant is awarded annually in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) to academic institutions that submit exemplary proposals on how to use ICT to enhance teaching and learning in schools. This year there were a total of 16 recipients in Africa and only 2 of them were from Kenya.
Project Executive Summary
The Faculty of IT submitted a successful project proposal entitled: Use of ICT in Enhancing Teaching and Curriculum Delivery in Marginalised Secondary Schools in Kenya. The main aim of the project is to partner with secondary schools in marginal areas of Kenya in order to develop and support the delivery of Computer Studies offered as part of the official Kenya Certificate of Secondary School Examination (KCSE) curriculum defined by the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE). In this curriculum, students are expected to learn and develop practical ICT skills with the main focus being general IT awareness and software development. In the final year of study, candidates are expected to develop a complete software project using a recommended set of tools and programming languages. However, for students in the marginal areas, their schools have limited, outdated or non- existent ICT infrastructure, inadequate teaching capacity and constrained financial resources. In addition, these schools are also located in areas of low economic activity affected with socio - economic challenges including gender bias against the girl child.
The project scope involves five schools, of which four are girls' schools, located in marginal areas in or around Nairobi province. The project team comprises of 5 lecturers and 20 IT undergraduate students from the Faculty of Information Technology.
The project focuses on two main target groups: secondary school teachers and students. It will facilitate on-campus trainer workshops that will provide an opportunity for the computer studies teachers to meet, share experiences and learn best teaching practices from experts in the field. During these sessions, teachers will also be exposed to new teaching methodologies in ICT. The other component of the project will involve the individual mentoring of the secondary students by the university students taking part in the project.
From the project onset, university students will visit the schools on a weekly basis on Saturdays. During their visits, these students will closely interact with the secondary school pupils taking Computer Studies to address their challenges and needs. The project will also deploy an e-learning solution to be used by the teachers and pupils as a resource centre. With guidance from the teachers, university students will develop and deploy digital instructional content that will be used to support the delivery of this subject. The content will be freely available to be shared amongst the students. The project is expected to last for 2 years.
