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In 2014 Kenya held the badge of being the country with the fastest Internet connectivity and highest rate of Internet access for its people across all sectors of the economy including education and all this at some of the lowest prices in Africa! In 2015 the status quo remains the same.

(Published by UbuntuNet Alliance) Thanks to a new project by Kenya Education Network (KENET), which in addition to traditionally focusing on higher education and research institutions, the NREN now aims to connect 200 schools with broadband Internet in a pilot phase of the KENET School Connectivity Initiative. So far, KENET has connected 88 schools.

“… the original vision of KENET was to use higher education institutions nodes to connect neighbouring schools both primary and secondary schools. The KENET Schools Connectivity Initiative aims to coordinate the different commercial, educational and government organizations that are interested and willing to promote the use of ICT in Kenyan schools for teaching, learning and administration. So far 88 schools have been connected through partnership with Wananchi Group,” reads the KENET website.

However, this project still needs significant support from commercial fiber and mobile operators in providing affordable last mile connectivity services to schools.

KENET also needs partners in setting up backbone school networks and WiFi hotspots in addition to providing networked computer labs with computers and tablets for use by students and teachers for teaching and learning.

To manage this dream of an efficient e-learning environment in Kenya’s entire education sector, the NREN also needs partners to support the provision of cloud-based school management software or ERP services for use in school administration.

For more information about the KENET School connectivity project email info@kenet.or.ke or visit http://www.kenet.or.ke.

Read the original article here: http://www.ubuntunet.net/january2015#kenet