The framework of an e-learning site for secondary schools in Nairobi.

Abstract

The demand for secondary school education in Nairobi and Kenya as a whole has been growing rapidly due to the exponential population growth witnessd since independence from the colonial power great britain in 1963 and, for the case of Nairobi, the increasing rate of rural-urban migration.This has caused a major strain on an education system that is already dogged by issues of ever changing course content, huge government expenditure on education, queries on the quality of teacher training and archaic methods of knowledge management and communication.Questions are being asked as to whether the current education system, 8-4-4, is preparing the country to meet its goals and objectives. With the premise the researcher embarked on a project that revealed that though the key players in the secondary school education system have the will to embrace modern methods of instruction and knowledge management, Information Technology (IT) is being used merely for routine basic processes such as word processing and therefore missing out on its true potential value.It was also discovered that the teachers teaching science subjects and mathematics which can take advantage of this technology have themselves very low computer training (41 percent being certificate holders and a shocking 15 percent having no formal education in computers). The researcher therefore developed a framework of an e-learning website to make secondary education more exciting, energetic, enthusiastic, emotional,extended, excellent, and educational in addition to being electronic.This was achieved by doing a thorough research of the content, technology and services applicable in Nairobi.The researcher went a head and tested this framework by designing a prototype website (www.e-learning.kenya) made up of a collection of related web pages, images, videos and other digital assets written in HTML and demonstration data stored in a database using Microsoft Access.