Most of the students are from poor backgrounds and many cannot afford school fees. A sizeable number were raised by a single parent or grandparent. Initially, the school was started as a mixed school, but the school board opted to change it to a girls school and are now in this process.

The impact of the Constituency Development Fund can be clearly seen as, without this, it would have been very difficult for the school buildings to grow beyond the basic structures.

If you or your organization would like to partner with Ruai Girls High School, pay them a visit, or give me a shout.

It is indeed a strange world when educators need to be convinced that sharing information, as opposed to concealing information, is a good thing. The advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed the sum total of human knowledge, is the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research. Yet throughout many school systems, the software in use on computers is closed and locked, making educators partners in the censorship of the foundational information of this new age. This software not only seeks to obscure how it works, but it also entraps the users’ data within closed, proprietary formats which change on the whim of the vendor and which are protected by the bludgeon of the End User License Agreement. This entrapment of data is a strong, punitive incentive to purchase the latest version of the software, regardless of whether it suits the educational purposes better, thereby siphoning more of the school’s limited resources away from the school’s primary purpose. The use of such closed software in education may be justified only where no suitable open source solution exists.

Educators have been called upon throughout history to combat censorship imposed by various powers over the flow of information. The censorship being applied today comes in the form of licenses that lock away the tools to build the information age and laws that limit fair use in ways that are unprecedented in the modern era. The powers imposing this censorship attempt to create an artificial scarcity of information and the tools to work with that information to feed their greed. Where would education be today if, for example, the mechanism and idea of the Gutenberg press were not only hidden, but protected by threat of dire punishment under the law if anyone dared to attempt to “reverse engineer” it?

We are well into the beginnings of the Information Age. It stands to affect the people of the world at least as profoundly as the Industrial Age. It is time for the opening of the tools that will be needed to build this new age. Teaching our children to be passive purchasers of closed, proprietary solutions to problems is not enough. Constraining students to move the mouse within the confines of the instruction set of a few closed, proprietary programs merely cages those students and constrains our future.

Students should, at least, be given the opportunity to see how their new tools work. They should be given the opportunity to examine the inner workings of software. They should be given the opportunity to extend the functions of their tools, where they see or imagine possibilities. They should not be held back by locking the toolbox of the Information Age and told they must not peer inside, must not try to discover how it works, must not share their tools with others, must not use their tools without paying proper tribute to the software overlords, under penalty and punishment of law.

The rest of the article is here.

A few things that struck me:

The way that Industry and Academic/Research Institutions work together to solve problems and the great importance that academic and research institutions are in the Us and indeed all developed and NI Countries

which brings to mind the stand off between Lecturers and Universities, Government that has paralysed learning in Kenyan Universities.

I went to university in Kenya, and to be honest, the job I got after that was not so much due to what I learnt on campus but off campus. It’s only that a good number of employers LOVE papers yet in the IT and Telecoms field I know a number of people who didn’t bother with campus and really know their stuff.. as well as people who were virtually not in class most of campus life, didn’t do well in the exams while working on other things like business or different courses.

There’s a great GAP between Universities and Industry in kenya and most of africa. We really cannot expect solutions from the west to always work in this country and in the region.

Until Universities are relevant to most facets of society and can work with the industry to develop ideas, products that solve problems, they probably won’t be able to churn out the kind of graduates that the continent needs to develop, as well as attract the funding, investments (e.g. a slice of that 12B profit from Safaricom).

Another thing from the book that I also noticed:

The importance of keeping employees happy, motivated, content, siked and all..

I have a friend working @ google and last time we talked:
“Google is Lovely”

I particularly love their 20% time set aside for their engineers to work on projects of their own. A good number of their products have come from this time. Projects with potential get funding and a team of engineers to work on. Innovation at work!

Oh and just imagine they have/had less employees than Telkom Kenya!!!!! (Telkom Kenya is to retrench 12000 people)

Number of employees: Worldwide, Google employed 7,942 full-time employees as of June 30, 2006 (http://www.google.com/corporate/facts.html)

Revenues for 2005 exceeded $6B and profits over $1.4B (http://investor.google.com/releases/2005Q4.html)

I’m considering being a CFA one day. However, I am more interested in the contents, the material knowledge etc. The exam itself is something i can work on later, maybe after 2-3 years.

I know strathmore have a CFA course.

Any ideas from anyone on how to proceed?

I came across this – spread the word:

MIT’s OCW (http://ocw.mit.edu/) is looking for African education

<!– D(["mb",") is looking for African education<br />institutions to offer mirror sites for its free, web-based teaching<br />materials. With the materials from 1400 MIT courses representing all 33<br />of MIT\'s academic disciplines, millions of educators and learners have<br />used the materials to improve their teaching and studies.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the MIT OCW materials are largely underutilized in many<br />African regions where Internet connectivity is limited. To overcome this<br />limitation, we have installed a small number of mirror sites, or local<br />copies of MIT OCW content, at African educational institutions and our<br />evaluation data show that these mirror sites are having a significant<br />positive impact.<br /><br />MIT OCW has received support to expand the number of mirror sites in the<br />region through the MIT OCW in a Box program. MIT OCW in a Box, which we<br />will distribute for free to African institutions, is an external hard<br />drive which contains: an entire copy of the entire MIT OCW Web site<br />(including videos), software tools, user documentation, and marketing<br />collateral. Its goal is to have 100 mirror sites installed at African<br />educational institutions by the end of 2006.<br /><br />If you know of a university that could benefit from this program, please<br />contact <a onclick\u003d\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\" href\u003d\"mailto:farnaz@mit.edu\">farnaz@mit.edu</a>.<br /><br /><br />* MOZAMBIQUE’S ISUTC LAUNCHES OPEN SOURCE LEARNING AND APPRAISAL SYSTEM<br /><br />LIMEAA (Laboratório Informático de Ensino, Auto-Aprendizagem e<br />Avaliação) is a web-based learning and appraisal system, conceived in<br />2002 as a way to support ISUTC\'s rapid expansion without compromising on<br />its distinctive academic approach. The first version of the system went<br />live within ISUTC in April 2006, and has just been launched publicly.<br /><br />ISUTC places a heavy emphasis on continuous assessment throughout each<br />semester, to encourage students to maintain extra-classroom reading.<br />",1] ); //–>institutions to offer mirror sites for its free, web-based teaching
materials. With the materials from 1400 MIT courses representing all 33
of MIT’s academic disciplines, millions of educators and learners have
used the materials to improve their teaching and studies.

Unfortunately, the MIT OCW materials are largely underutilized in many
African regions where Internet connectivity is limited. To overcome this
limitation, we have installed a small number of mirror sites, or local
copies of MIT OCW content, at African educational institutions and our
evaluation data show that these mirror sites are having a significant
positive impact.

MIT OCW has received support to expand the number of mirror sites in the
region through the MIT OCW in a Box program. MIT OCW in a Box, which we
will distribute for free to African institutions, is an external hard
drive which contains: an entire copy of the entire MIT OCW Web site
(including videos), software tools, user documentation, and marketing
collateral. Its goal is to have 100 mirror sites installed at African
educational institutions by the end of 2006.

If you know of a university that could benefit from this program, please
contact farnaz@mit.edu.

Blogged with Flock

So u think u match einstein’s IQ, what with all the papers nicely tucked in your portfolio and ready to be flashed out to the interviewer at a moments notice.. papers ..

Well .. of course you’re totally prepared for the interview and you get the job.. (your job title probably reads IT Manager or something inspiring and important)

Lakini wacha the real IT world hits you… (i.e. papers != knowledge) a simple virus can give u nightmares and make u miss that (executive) lunch.. or the mere mention of another operating system apart from Micro$oft windows.. can be (almost) heart stopping..

but then you think.. after all … papers are everything … or are they…?

someone pinch me or show me the money

i’m still dreaming… but hopefully I shall awake from the dream…

I think there are sooooo many people capable of actually starting a private university… just that the regulations are so (archaic and) designed to make university something for the elite…