NANDI COUNTY DIGITAL MASHINANI PROGRAM
Nandi County Digital Mashinani program is aimed at equipping the people especially the youth with the digital skills by providing the tools, training and offering mentorship needed. This enables the youth to use the available technology to grab available online jobs, create more jobs, work online and earn out of it so as to improve their livelihoods. These skills will also expose them to digital opportunities and careers that will boost their employability.
The County Government of Nandi is partnering with the National Government’s Ministry of ICT-Ajira digital program, Google’s eMobilis and Computer For Schools Kenya (CFSK) in the implementation of the digital skills training initiative.
This program will be rolled out in all the Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) where the County through the departments of ICT and e-Government together with Education and Vocational Training is equipping the VTC’s computer labs. The partnership with CFSK has recieved 20 computers for each of the 10 VTCs in the county. These VTCs include Kapsabet school for the deaf, Kaplamai, Sigilai, Meteitei, Mugen, Serem, Sirwa Yala, Chemundu, Kaptel and Tangaratwet.
The Chief Officer for ICT and e-Government, Jonathan Misoi, while chairing the program’s stakeholders meeting, said that the County government has set the best environment and provided the necessary resources for the implementation of this program. He therefore calls upon the youth to enroll in any VTC in the county for this program as from May 2019 and that The Governor, H.E Stephen Sang, will soon be launching the program.
The County ICT team together with experts from CFSK have already completed the installation of these computers and the stations are ready for use by the students. The county is also providing training manuals from the partners to be used for the free digital skills training where as CFSK, AJIRA and Google will be examining the students and providing the relevant certifications.
The Chief Officer in charge of Education and Vocational Training, Daniel Sang pointed out that his department will be keenly monitoring the implementation of this program. He further added that this program is an enabler in the learning process of other courses offered in the VTC and therefore encourages students to grab the opportunity.
Mr. Gideon Karoney, a manager at Kaptel VTC congratulated the county govenment for the technological move towards making the VTCs better learning environment and a centre for the implementation of the County Digital Mashinani Program.
Also present in the stakeholders forum were: Managers from all the VTCs, County ICT training team and Google’s eMobilis trainer.