The Digital Literacy Programme in Western is faltering, only 42 per cent of schools are using tablets.
Senior director at the Presidential Delivery Unit in charge of Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza Truphosa Aluoch called the integration of ICT in learning unimpressive.
Aluoch spoke during a forum on the progress of the DLP at Shilalyo Primary School in Shinyalu subcounty in Kakamega county on Wednesday.
Present were teachers, headteachers and regional directors of education, the Teachers Service Commission and ICT department.
Headteachers said three-day training provided to teachers on the use of the devices was inadequate.
They also cited teacher transfers, saying trained teachers are affected, considering that only two teachers per school were trained. The idea was that those who had undergone the training would train the rest.
Another problem, they said, was increased enrolment in Standard 1 while the number of the devices remained the same.
Some teachers suffer from technology phobia and are uncomfortable with the tablets.
Kakamega ICT coordinator Joan Machoka said 178,801 learner and teacher devices were given out in the region and urged the teachers to use them. Learners get tablets, teachers get laptops.
She told them to use either the teacher and learner accounts, which do not have passwords, to access the tablets instead of the administrator account as some had complained about it.
Machoka stated that they will upload Competency-Based Curriculum programmes into the devices once they receive them from the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
Regional TSC Director Olende Onono called on teachers to make use of the ICT tools despite the challenges.
He instructed school heads to allow their staff and pupils to take the devices home for maximum use as long as a proper record is kept.
In the second phase of integration of ICT in teaching and learning, the government intends to put up computer labs in schools.
Edited by R.Wamochie
