ICT Training for Teachers
Fida International and its partners organized trainings for teachers to enhance their digital skills.
Introduction
Kenya has established a new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) that promotes digital learning. Still, there is room for improvement when it comes to digital skills of teachers – whose role is essential in supporting students’ digital literacy.
Tackling this, Fida International and its partner ICT4 Development Kenya trained digital skills for 12 teachers from different schools. After the month-long training, the teachers tutored in their schools and shared the learnings with more than 150 other teachers.
The experiment was conducted in a partnership with ICT4 Development Kenya.
Results
Teachers received the training and strengthened their digital skills. They learned how to utilize available tools to develop and deliver educational content. The teachers also gained the skills to train their peers to do the same.
As part of the experiment, a network and a platform were developed for collecting, creating, and disseminating information and knowledge about ICT in education to peer teachers.
There were some challenges along the way: for instance, poor connectivity and inadequate equipment (use of smartphones instead of computers). Moreover, the implementation was challenging since students and teachers did not necessarily own gadgets.
Scaling
The experiment holds some potential for scaling. It is at least possible to provide advanced training for the teachers. The model could also be utilized in other sectors, such as food security: information could be shared with farmers who could enhance their production with the digital tools.
There were also some ideas for improvement. There could be dedicated computers for each teacher for intensive content development. Moreover, school administrators or heads could be part of the training.