By, Shibah Nakakande.
Some Educationalists raised a concern about the necessity for gadgets when the new lower Secondary curriculum was introduced by National Curriculum Development Center in 2021.
The minister for Education and Sports Hon. Janet Kataha Museveni on Thursday 22 August, 2024 acknowledged the use of phones, laptops, tablets and other devices that access the internet in both primary and secondary schools.
While launching the education Digital Agenda, the first lady cautioned schools to monitor all the gadgets students shall be using to avoid cyber insecurity.
Since some students already access phones, laptops at home, the first Lady told parents to regulate their children’s content consumption because the government doesn’t have control over those devices.
Eng. Andrew Adroni an IT expert at Raising Voices advised parents to regulate their children’s internet use and some of the applications that teachers and schools to monitor the use of internet on the gadgets.
“ Google family link , this is a free application that uses google , so most parents use Android devices and most of the gadgets parents but for children are mainly Android , so this is too can help them monitor their activities and block links they don’t want to access.” Said Andrew.
Assistant Commissioner of ICT at Ministry of Education and Sports Patrick Mulindwa said that they are still finalizing the guidelines to be used to ensure cyber security.
“We want to make sure that all devices used in schools are pre-configured to prevent any potential risks. Privately owned gadgets will not be permitted in schools. “Said Patrick.
Nakasero Secondary School is one of the schools that allowed their students to use phones to conduct research implementing the New Lower Secondary Curriculum.
Godfrey Mubiru is the Director of studies at Nakasero SS in 2022 noted that their decision to allow learners use smartphones helped them gap the scarcity of Learners’ activity books. After class students return the phones to his office.
Most schools were not in support of allowing students to access mobile phones because since time memorial gadgets prohibited and if found with one, it could lead to expulsion or suspension.
Maximizing available resources for instance school libraries for students to research which are not enough because some of the books are not enough and the need for internet is necessary.
For the digital Agenda to be successful, the Ministry will need approximately 1.3 trillion shillings in the next seven years.
185.9 billion shillings shall be invested annually to improve the access to digital infrastructures and connectivity infrastructures especially for the education Sector.
