Embu youth locked out of 30-computer ICT lab donated to ACK Kiamuringa School

Residents of Kiamuringa in Mbeere South, Embu County, say they are yet to benefit from a 30-computer ICT laboratory donated by the Stanbic Kenya Foundation to ACK Kiamuringa School more than five months ago, despite the foundation's stated aim of reaching local youth through digital skills training.

The laboratory is fully equipped and was established to initially benefit 200 students and 23 teachers. Residents say it remains in use only by the school and that access for the wider community has been minimal.

When the Stanbic Foundation launched the centre, it said it was expanding its commitment to digital inclusion and socio-economic empowerment across Kenya, and that it also targeted hundreds of local youth in the surrounding Embu community through digital skills training.

Residents say the link between the school management and the community was minimal even at the launch, leaving people keen on digital skills with no means of accessing the equipment, which they describe as largely idle.

Kiamuringa has hundreds of school leavers and middle-level college and university students interested in pursuing digital skills. Security and safety concerns, however, continue to restrict entry to the digital centre.

In interviews with a cross-section of college graduates and school leavers, they said they would like to use the centre even at a fee, and stressed the need to expose the wider community to digital skills and awareness.

Kiamuringa-based ICT enthusiast and trained therapist John Musangi Kinyua said that after reading about the laboratory he wondered why the project's founders had not involved the community, through teachers and parents' groups, in sharing the equipment.

Musangi said that had the community been involved in planning, many members, including school leavers and the public, would be benefiting even from basic services such as computer packages. He said the centre could also have become an income-generating outfit for the school, since the nearest private internet bureau is a kilometre away.

According to Musangi, the bureau charges residents high fees for basic services such as registering for the Social Health Authority (SHA), filing Kenya Revenue Authority tax returns and printing.

Another ICT enthusiast and music and film producer, Ken Njeru, said he was surprised to learn that the centre was not accessible to the community around the school and asked for ways to open it up.

"This is not fair to the community, the Stanbic Foundation had intended that a wider population benefits from the ICT centre contrary to what is happening today, we need to see the school management opening the Centre to the Kiamuringa community," Njeru said.

Kenya Water Institute (KEWI) graduate Natasha Wakesho, who is starting out in ICT-based courses and online marketing work, called for more ICT laboratories like the one at the school. She said such facilities should be made available to students, school leavers, college students and the wider community to spread computer literacy.

"What Stanbic Foundation did was very important and should be emulated by other commercial firms because the clause indicating that the same equipment should be accessible to the population surrounding the schools would ensure sharing and spread of computer literacy skills at community level," she said.

Neither the parents nor the school head have publicly outlined plans to open the centre to the surrounding community as anticipated by the Stanbic Foundation.

At the launch, ACK Kiamuringa School Principal Joseph Mwaniki described the event as a historic milestone for the school and said the school community, including parents, was deeply grateful to the foundation for the donation.

Mwaniki said students previously had limited exposure to practical computer lessons and that the new laboratory would improve teachers' capacity to teach STEM subjects. He said candidates would be better prepared for a digital world and teachers would have modern instructional tools.

He also said that by opening the facility to local youth, ACK Kiamuringa School would become a centre of hope and economic empowerment for the wider Kiamuringa community.