Joy Town School in Thika has designed and implemented Information Communication and Technology (ICT) supported education curriculum. The curriculum is to help promote acquisition of knowledge and skills by average secondary school students to excel in national examinations. Anthony Wamwea, the school’s director of studies says, “When ICT is used appropriately especially in computer and internet technologies, it opens up new ways of teaching and learning for teachers and students alike.” This, Wamwea quips, has enabled slow learners in the last three years to better understand and appreciate abstract concepts in mathematics and sciences. Using teacher-generated power-point presentation slides, Mr Wamwea noted that lessons are now easier to present in class, and have boosted the school’s efforts to adequately cover and finish the secondary school syllabus in time before the students sit their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations. The development is in line with the government’s 2006 National Information and Communications Technology Policy that encourages the use of ICT in schools to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The school’s teachers received training from volunteers drawn from Australia and England in a bid to make class lessons visually appealing, interesting, and easy to interpret concepts that ordinarily appear too technical to be easily understood. Wamwea disclosed that the use of ICT has helped to support new instructional approaches and make hard-to-implement teaching methods such as simulation or interactive learning more interesting to learners.

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