Liquid Telecom, Cisco Partnership Will Provide Kenyan Teachers with ICT Skills

Pan African telecommunication group Liquid Telecom has concluded a six-week long online training for over 100 teachers in Western Kenya, as part of a broader effort to provide complimentary training to enhance remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This training was conducted in partnership with Cisco Systems to provide teachers the necessary ICT skills needed to manage networks and increase effectiveness of computer labs and classrooms as locations to deliver remote online tuition.

As schools in Kenya are set to resume with at least some of the lessons online, teachers across the country require high speed connectivity on school premises and digital skills to teach. It is vital that they experience minimal network interruptions during classes to ensure the learners receive the best possible education. The training organised by Liquid Telecom and Cisco provided basic network training focused on maintenance, configuration and troubleshooting to enhance their teaching experience.

Attending the graduation ceremony for the teachers, Mr. Hesbon Malweyi, Director of ICT at the Ministry of ICT, said: “Via the Universal Service Fund, we have already connected 1000 public schools across Kenya to Broadband.  COVID-19 has hastened the adoption of digitalisation to improve and reform our education systems. As we empower the next generation of students it is imperative that we also empower educators with the relevant digital skills to teach effectively.”

Hital Muraj, CSR Manager, East Africa at Cisco Systems said: ““We are living in extra ordinary times and the recent pandemic has put a spot light on the digital resilience of our education sector. Schools, universities and other academic institutions have to adopt online learning to avoid disruptions in education. Cisco is proud to partner with Liquid on this important initiative to equip our teachers with skills required to maintain, troubleshoot and configure networks. Often, we see donations lying around because people don’t have skills to manage and maintain the equipment. Through this partnership, the teachers have been equipped with skills to enable them to maintain their own infrastructure.”

Ben Roberts, Group Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Liquid Telecom said: “Since schools have been closed, Liquid Telecom has worked with both local and global technology companies to empower ICT teachers to use the broadband we have installed at the schools.  Besides Cisco we have also delivered training to ICT teachers from Microsoft, KeNIC and Angaza Elimu, with a focus to provide an optimal education experience for learners. This latest course has equipped the teachers with skills they need to really use the available networks and broadband in schools to teach ICT, as well as to assist other subject teachers to start using the available resources”.

Liquid Telecom, an emerging technology champion in the region committed to building Africa’s digital future, provides 5mpbs bandwidth per school to various schools in Western Kenya under a contract with Kenya’s Universal Service Fund. The network training falls under the company’s mission to empower teachers and invest in Kenya’s next generation. 88 ICT teachers and 15 non-ICT teachers from across 95 different schools went through the program.

Liquid Telecom is also supporting 140 schools in western Kenya to deliver online learning by providing them with Microsoft Teams and Office 365 collaboration tools and training the teachers to deploy the tools and use them for online classes. The organization has previously connected over 300 schools with internet in that region, preparing them to conduct online classes during this Covid-19 period.