International Institute for Communication and development (IICD) has installed solar panels at Ilkerin in Turkana, Kenya, set to enhance the quality of education among the Maasai tribe that live in the region.
IICD, country manager Anne Marijke Podt told Humanipo the generators would be fitted to solar panels to power computers.
The solar panels will power computer labs that will serve the local community alongside the students as well as out-of-school youth currently receiving vocational training.
The energy efficient computers use one server PC although multiple users can access the services.
The area has no access to grid electricity and has a poor road system. Podt says her organisation had a rough time transporting fuel to the area for the power generators.
She however adds that the installation of Solar Power Systems would not only support such projects but would enhance computer literacy within the community of Ilkerin, and especially of the youth and primary school students.
Late last year, the then minister of education Prof Sam Ongeri said the lack of electricity in marginalised regions affected the implementation of ICT programmes and urged the government to facilitate rural electrification. The ministry dedicated more than KSh18 billion to computerise all schools in the country and link them to the optic fibre cables.
According to 2011 Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) report, only 893 sub-locations in the country had access to Internet services, with a total of 85,000 broadband subscribers. Less than five percent of people living in rural areas were also found to use the Internet in spite of growth in the number of Internet users from 1.7 million in 2007 to 10 million in June 2011, the report states.
The minister said exposure to computers and Internet was mandatory for all schoolchildren as the world had become digital. Podt believes that children from the Maasai area will benefit from a similar learning environment as their peers in Nairobi.
She also believes that this would lead to developing context specific educational materials for the schoolchildren. The project is a result of a collaboration between IICD and Edukans in the Connect4Change consortium and local partner ILIDP.
This is not the first time for such an activity. In 2008, Education minister Prof Sam Ongeri said the ministry was adopting electronic learning in most Kenyan schools as a way of embracing information technology (IT).
The pilot phase of the programme kicked off in August 2008 in sixteen schools across the eight provinces and cost some KSh15 million. CCK supplied each of the selected schools with a server, four computers and a printer and the telecom operators provided free internet to the schools in the pilot phase.
