Kanzai Primary School, located in a remote rural area of Kenya, provides educational services to over 1,000 children from the Maasai community. The local community relies on education to sustain itself, and to ensure students are able to gain opportunities for future employment. Schools in remote locations rely on being connected to the outside world to expand their learning beyond the classroom; have access to premium content – wherever they are located; extend teachers’ abilities; and overall positively impact the communities they serve.
CHALLENGE: In rural parts of Kenya, quality education is a major obstacle. Faced with poor infrastructure and an acute shortage of teachers, the schools’ issues are further compounded by the fact that many of them are located in hard-to-reach remote areas. Connecting schools to the outside world and educational resources with traditional dial-up service is not ideal.
SOLUTION: YahClick teamed up with the Maasai Wildlife Conservation Trust (MWCT) to provide e-learning via its satellite broadband service to over 1,000 students at Kanzai Primary School.
RESULT: Today, students are not only encouraged to attend school, but have great access to learning resources, providing them the same chances as fellow learners around the world. The strained teaching community is also provided with additional teaching resources, allowing them to teach a broader, more dynamic curriculum.
Kanzai Primary School is located in the arid remote setting of Etalal in rural Kenya. The land contains important resources for the local community, and is also home to habitat reserves, forests that are carbon sinks, and rivers and springs that supply fresh water to more than 7 million people living in and around the port city of Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city. The local community relies on education to sustain itself, and to ensure students are able to gain opportunities for future employment. However, access to quality education is a major challenge in rural parts of Kenya due to poor school infrastructure and an acute shortage of teachers. Kanzai Primary School is supported by the Maasai Wildlife Conservation Trust (MWCT) and the Ministry of Education. These organisations are committed to ensuring the improvement of enrollment, retention, completion and transition rates, whilst maintaining aspects of Maasai culture. This purpose-built school teaches a combination of the Kenyan and British curricula and is attended by some of the best pupils in the area. It prepares students for enrollment in leading national and international schools and consequently enables them to become future community leaders.
A shortage of teachers combined with the school’s remote location means that resources are stretched. To abate these challenges, the school is utilising e-learning, which is only possible through a secure, high-speed connection. YahClick joined forces with MWCT to provide reliable satellite broadband services to Kanzai Primary School. The community school now benefits from fast, uninterrupted connectivity – something that was not possible with a traditional telecommunications infrastructure. The benefits of the YahClick service are far-reaching, according to Head Teacher, Ronald Kana Aguso, who says that connectivity not only expands the classroom learning environment, but incentivises children to attend school, who may otherwise have stayed at home with their families. It is clear that connectivity in remote schools goes beyond only academia - it guides students on vital career development and life skills. Over 1,000 students now have fast, reliable access to e-learning opportunities.
