As the programme continues to gain momentum, the field team worked tirelessly to ensure the last of the school installs were completed. The schools, located in the Uasin Gishu region, were visited by the team to network the ICT equipment, complete the installations and to answer any remaining questions. Completing the deployment and installation phase is a significant milestone for the programme and for everyone involved – well done all!
It hasn’t all been plain sailing this month though. It’s been a real challenge to obtain consistent attendance records as a few schools were recording attendance for some days and not for others. To counter this, the field team had to revisit the schools to educate the teachers, with the aim to ensure they were engaged and understood the importance of taking attendance. We’ve seen excellent progress as we’re now up to 120,000+ children who regularly use their smartcard for attendance – an excellent achievement so far.
It’s extremely important that the teachers learn to take attendance every day, as we have already seen how it can be used for reasons beyond the classroom. We were informed via a message that was posted on our online community wall, that a teacher – after hearing a news report of children being kidnapped in the Sultan Hamud area on the radio - had used the attendance tablet and smartcards to check whether or not his students had been kidnapped. Accompanied by the children’s parents, the teacher used the technology to take attendance and identify who was absent - and potentially in danger. Before iMlango, the teacher wouldn’t have had any knowledge of who was - or should have been - in their class…
Until next time,
The iMlango team