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Kenya’s school tablets being sold cheaply in Uganda

ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru helps pupils of Ortum Boys Boarding Primary School during the launch of the digital literacy programme in 2016. .

By  Nation Africa

What you need to know:

  • The revelations have been made by a hawk-eyed Kenyan who shared a Facebook page of a seller advertising the tablets which are retailing for KSh4,000 (UGX 150,000).

Kenya government’s digital literacy programme personal tablet that they promised every Standard One pupil in public schools across the country have found their way into the Ugandan market.

The revelations have been made by a hawk-eyed Kenyan who shared a Facebook page of a seller advertising the tablets which are retailing for KSh4,000 (UGX 150,000). The seller, who ran an advertising page on Facebook, said he was based in Kampala.

Nairobi News has also established that the tablets are also being sold by another trader for as low as Sh3,700. This price was by one buyer who was introducing other customers to his supplier.

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The government in 2014 launched the digital literacy program and promised that 23,951 public primary schools in Kenya would receive a total of 1.2 million learner digital devices.

In 2015, the government said that a total of KSh17 billion will be spent to buy 1.2 million laptops for Standard One pupils after the salvaged procurement was launched by the ICT Authority.

During the rollout of the digital literacy programme in May 2016, the policy shifted from laptops to tablets due to cost implications.

In 2019, the government suspended issuance of tablets to class one pupils, opting instead to build computer laboratories for 25,000 public primary schools countrywide. However, at the time, not all pupils in primary schools had received the tablets.

According to the delivery timelines, 600,000 devices were to be supplied by the end of June 2016, and the remaining 600,000 a year later in 2017.

In 2016, four schools in Bungoma County lost hundreds of the branded tablets to thieves.

In 2021, 71 of the stolen tablets were recovered in Uganda.

According to the police, the devices were recovered after a Ugandan suspect carrying them on a motorbike was arrested at an unofficial border crossing.

Upon recovery, Ugandan police alerted their Kenyan counterparts in Bungoma who visited the Lwakhakha police station in Uganda and identified the branded laptops.

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