SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYSollatek Kenya supports development in rural areas
Computer school at Sollatek
Preparations for the computer school at Sollatek are going well. We have written to the District Education Officer for his departments approval, but they will not come to inspect until everything is in place. We are in the process of registering the school with ICDL in South Africa and their local agent will supply all the materials from Nairobi and an inspector will come from South Africa before we start. The desks will arrive next week and after that the computers and installation will follow and I expect the school to be ready by mid July in good time to start taking the first two classes of students on 1st August. As previously agreed all costs associated with the school will be born by Sollatek and the students will only be required to pay their Matatu fares to Sollatek each day
The class will take either 12 or 14 students depending on how many desks we can comfortably fit into the room and I have engaged Kevin Musiega (to whom this is copied) as a Consultant to implement the project for Sollatek. Casty Muthoni (the Teacher) will introduce him to you at your office in Ratna Square next week and by this time he will know the exact number of students we will be able to take in a class. The intention is to run one class of 2 hours in the morning and another for 2 hours in the afternoon and as the two parts of the ICDL course take approximately 5 months of study (based on attendance of 5 days a week Mon to Fri) we intend to run the school on a 6 month cycle. If you take into account one months leave per year for the Teacher this means we can realistically run 4 classes a year and have a month to spare when students who have problems passing their exams can receive extra coaching. In the first three years exams will have to be taken at an ICDL test centre in Mombasa, but Sollatek will pay the fees for these exams. ICDL stipulate that exams can only be done in-house after the school has been established for 3 years.
The arrangments we are proposing are acceptable to the students and discuss the academic level of the Form 4 leavers which ACTS will be supplying, as we get the impression the students need to be quite bright to pass the course. The ICDL (international computer driving licence) is accepted and very well regarded by both the private sector and government in Kenya, so once the students have the course and obtained their certificates it will greatly improve their chances of either getting a job or moving into further education. Shemina (our Commercial Manager) is in charge of the day to day management of the project for Sollatek and we suggest we all have a meeting before the school opens on 1st August. Once things have settled down we will have an opening ceremony with the press present and our Marketing Consultant will arrange for a supplement in the newspaper which will highlight what ACTS and Sollatek are doing together at this school to help under-privileged school leavers.
We have some steep stairs down to the classroom, so I would not like to take any handicapped wheelchair bound students on the first 2 courses we run. Once things have settled down I will see what we have to do inorder to get them safely up and down the stairs and they can be included on the second course which will start early next year.
Group photo of the Computer School Pupils.
Another group photo of the Computer School Pupils.