Education stakeholders in Embu County have been challenged to promote digital learning by helping residents gain requisite skills in various professions.
The teams should also encourage school leavers to pursue skills instead of falling into the present over-obsession with the acquisition of college certificates and degrees.
Kamau Mbugua, the leading Embu-based digital learning promoter, activist, and expert insisted that skills came before certificates and should be the main drive for Kenyans of all ages to enter and embrace digital virtual learning.
The expert said that virtual learning remained the game changer in the acquisition of all types of professional skills by people of all ages because skills’ therein could be acquired at any location and convenience of the learner.
Speaking in a cross-section of forums key among them students’ education and mentorship days organized across various parts of the County, the mathematics and physics teacher cautioned failure to adopt digital virtual learning would compromise potential skills enthusiasts’ access to essential professional skills.
‘’Acquisition of skills and knowledge through virtual learning is flexible, convenient and affordable through the widely available content offering digital platforms’’, said Mbugua popularly known as “Mwalimu Digital “
He operates his own quiet platform where he interacts with mathematics and physics learners.
During the inaugural Manyatta Constituency Education and Careers Day at Kangaru School he said that most Kenyans failed to enter digital learning over fears that the certificate or degrees they would acquire were unacceptable in the employment sector.
Kenyans, he said should avoid collapsing into what he termed as ‘’Certificate Disease’’ because of their over-obsession with the acquisition of academic certificates, which sometimes did not correspond with skills required in the labor sector.
In an interview with the Education News, Mbugua said that as the national government positively played its role, stakeholders in the grassroots right from parents, students, schools, colleges, and universities as well as county governments needed to mainstream digital learning curriculums in all sections of education.
The Digital Teacher who has been a key figure in most mentorship forums and who is also a member of the Embu County Professionals Development Association (ECPDA) stressed the importance of entrenching virtual education into Kenyan learning lifestyles.
While noting that there were numerous platforms where wide-ranging skills could be acquired, Mbugua reminded Kenyans that premiums where payments were required offered better more profitable skills than the free ones.
He clarified that even in serious professions such as engineering and medicine, virtual learning had gained popularity sometimes even beyond the classroom background.
Those interested in those high-sounding and exclusive prestigious professions, he assured should not hesitate, noting that practicals were available through some of the most versatile and advanced digital technologies.
‘’The digital medical technologies in learning and real-time operations are almost entirely being controlled through digital platforms’’, explained Mbugua adding that in fact those learning virtually perhaps enjoyed more completion and transition rates and percentages than those attending classrooms.
Educationists and mentors, he said should encourage young people and especially students in schools, colleges, and universities to avoid utilizing the little data they acquired to pursue watching entertaining content in Tick Tock but instead select any course on youtube and learn some skills.
Watching other peoples’ content, the expert said, made Kenyans the product because those they followed earned incomes through the strikes and the likes registered.
Youthful Kenyans conversant with digital platforms he insisted could do a lot to become marketers and content creators by merely taking some of the courses and acquiring skills.
By Robert Nyagah
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