Livestreaming of lessons to schools in Turkana County has kicked off at Lodwar Boys’ High School.
The pilot project was initiated after the Teachers Service Commission identified five other schools to be enjoined in the streaming with Lodwar Boys’ as the main centre.
The school’s Principal Patrick Esekon, is the Chairman of the Programme. He says, “Forms 2 and 3 students have already benefitted from the livestreaming of chemistry and physics lessons, respectively.”
The five Satellite schools are Lokichogio Mixed, Uhuru Girls’, Nagis, David Lee, and KerioBoys’. “We are being urged to improve so as to cover more schools in the county,” says Esekon. “This will help the schools to achieve syllabus coverage using a lesser human resource within the stipulated period.”
Delegations from the Ministry of Education, the World Bank, and the Global Partnership for Education, have been out since the first week of October 2024, inspecting schools to assess how various programmes are being implemented. One of the schools visited has been Lodwar Boys’ High School. Others are Lodwar Girls’ High School and St. Monicah Comprehensive School, also in Lodwar.
The visitations fall under the trail of the Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning (KPEEL) programme. The Head of the Directorate of Projects Coordination and Delivery, Elijah Mungai, says, “KPEEL was focusing on improvement of learning outcomes and purposefully looking at regions that have been lagging behind in terms of educational indicators and intervening in different ways to see that we raise the standards to an equal level.”
Since the launch of the initiative, funded by the government of Kenya with support from partners that include the World Bank and the Global Partners for Education, two years have elapsed.
“During midterm, we can re-strategise and sharpen some of the areas so that by the end of it in 2026, we can conclude that we achieved the intended targets when we began,” Mungai says. He adds, “These activities are based on the reforms taking place in the education sector, as well as espoused in the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms.”
The lessons livestreaming pilot at Lodwar Boys’ High School, is intended to gauge the effectiveness of the teaching and learning mode before widening the radius of coverage to encompass more schools.
Esekon intends to regularise a schedule that will harmonise the timetables of the six schools to absorb at least three lessons per week.
The number of students sponsored under the Elimu scholarship is 264, both from the host community and the refugee camp. In Form 1, there are 81 learners; Form 2 has 118 students, and 23 are in Form 3. In Form 4, there are 42 students.
“On admission, we integrate them into Lodwar High School Community because some of them were learning in day schools and others had challenges in the camp,” says Esekon.
The Principal says 2024 saw an increase of 416 learners in Form 1, most of whom are from the refugee camp. The school has 33 government and 22 Board of Management teachers.
Esekon regrets that many parents whose children are not under Elimu Scholarships don’t pay school fees promptly.
Due to occasional conflicts within the refugee camp, some students request to remain in school during closure, and the school accedes to their request, based on the Good Samaritan spirit.
Esekon doesn’t hesitate to label his school ‘International.’ It’s admitted students from Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan. “I appeal to the donor community to assist in further developing the school’s infrastructure,” Esekon says.
The school’s infrastructure has progressively improved. “Upon being elevated to a National School in 2012, the government gave us around 25 million shillings, which went to infrastructure development.”
Last year, the County posted four A-minus grades. All were from Lodwar Boys’ High School. All attracted sponsorship from an USA-affiliated NGO to pursue further studies in the US. The school is projecting a mean score of 9.5 during the next exams. Four students are under the Wings to Fly by the EGF.
By William Inganga
