OLPC Kenya
| 2007 status: red | ||||
| red | ||||
We need at least English and Swahili (aka Kiswahili). Additional tribal languages would be nice so that children can use their mother tongue. Ethnologue reports:
National or official languages: Swahili, English.
- Gikuyu [kik] 5,347,000
- Gusii [guz] 1,582,000
- Kalenjin [kln] 2,458,123
- Kamba [kam] 2,448,300
- Luo [luo] 3,185,000
- Luyia [luy] 3,418,083
- Maasai [mas] 453,000
- Meru [mer] 1,305,000
- Swahili [swh] 131,000
OLPC Kenya Acceptance and Implementation
I agree but for initial roll out or deployment, laptops with English only would be fine. There is a strong desire in Kenyan children from a very young age to learn and improve their English skills. Kiswahili and English are both taught in public primary schools, with Kiswahili and a tribal language often being used at home, so it is not like English is being imposed through the OLPC project.
Larger issues in Kenya are corruption and a fairly substantial commitment to and investment in "hand-me-down" obsolete hardware, technologies and proprietary software by the government and existing NGO's.
Educational or other institutions need to be educated on the value of adopting and supporting new and cutting edge technologies and projects like OLPC.
We also need an internet service provider to partner with OLPC for reliable connectivity. Some of the ISP's already provide free service for some schools. --Rafikiyako 01:21, 16 November 2007 (EST)
OLPC Kenya in Eastern Province - Kibwezi two-week launch
A "green team" in two weeks on the ground in Kibwezi, Kenya, launched six units for a primary school of four hundred pupils including the Pre-Unit and two younger classes. Four teachers who received our training we already teaching other teachers prior to our leaving 18 July, 2008.
See Also
- Wikipedia's article on Kenya
- OLPC_world_map or News for updates