Government lauds ADSI program, pledges continuity

Kibaha. The government has lauded the ongoing African Digital Schools Initiative (ADSI) and pledged more support to ensure more schools and teachers are covered through the programme.
This was said by the Coast Regional Education Officer, Hadija Mcheka during a training session organised the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GESCI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and funded by Mastercard Foundation in Kibaha, Coast Region.
According to Ms Mcheka,  ADSI has caused a lot of transformation within a short time because  the schools that are covered by the program are now digitalized, something that has made work easier for both  teachers and students.
“ADSI has ensured the selected schools have laptops, projectors and routers for internet. We want this to spread to more schools,” she said adding that the government will ensure the schools get more equipment to meet the needs.
The program so far covers Coast and Morogoro Regions where 20 schools in each region were selected to be turned into digital schools of distinction and so far over 400 teachers have been reached through the program.
“We are fully part of ADSI and we will pick up from where they will end to ensure continuity,” she said and urged teachers who have benefited from the program to share the knowledge with the rest of the teachers who are yet to be reached.
On his part, the ADSI program Coordinator in Coast Region, Bahati Juma thanked the government for endorsing ADSI program and allowing teachers to go for training.
“It is also encouraging to see that most schools have now requested for additional equipment because what we provided them is not enough and the government has started supplying more laptops, projectors and routers in some schools,” he said.
The training brought together different stakeholders including school heads, board representatives, school based coordinators and representatives from the Ministry of education who deliberated on how best to further the ADSI program in terms of implementation even after it comes to an end in April 2021.
Chole Secondary School Head teacher, Zainari Ngonyani said the program has greatly assisted the teachers in lesson planning, acquisition of materials and also ensuring neat work.
“It helped us a lot during the covid-19 pandemic where we able to communicate with the students through technology. It has helped a lot in improving on our performance,” he said.
On his part, the Kibaha Secondary School Head Teacher Chrisdom Ambilikile said teachers have now adapted the technology and are enjoying it.
 “Previously most of them were shying away and thought it was difficult but in actual sense it has made our work easy,” he said.
The ADSI program is also under implementation in Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire and is fully funded by Mastercard Foundation.