Kenyan senator keen to learn from Rwanda’s journey in bridging digital skills gap

By Michel Nkurunziza.

On Friday, October 28, 2022, Kenyan senator Karen Nyamu came to learn from Rwanda’s journey in bridging the digital skills gap among the population.

The senator conducted a study tour at the Ministry of Labour (MIFOTRA) and the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and met Fanfan Rwanyindo and Paula Ingabire who are respectively the ministers of both ministries.

“We want to learn from Rwanda about how it is implementing digital skills programme for the population, where the budget comes from among other practices that are delivering. We have to learn from each other and we can learn something to be replicated in Kenya,” she said.

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Senator Nyamu is a member of the committee of ICT and also the committee of labour in Kenya’s senate.

“ In our country, we are passionate to have a workforce with digital skills and literacy. We are aware that there is a programme that Rwanda and ICDL are running of offering digital literacy to all populations and civil servants.

This is an ambitious programme and I was curious to come and learn how they are doing it, how it began, and the success and challenges they are having so that we go and implement it in Kenya because we are partners and we have a lot to learn from each other. That is why we met the minister of labour and minister of ICT,” she said.

Rwanda targets to have 60 per cent of the population with digital literacy by 2024 according to Paula Ingabire, the Minister of ICT and Innovation in Rwanda.

“ We have a lot that Kenya can learn from us and we can also learn from them,” she said.

 

So far over 10,000 digital ambassadors have been prepared to train over five million Rwandans on digital literacy by 2024.

Digital Ambassadors will help to serve as digital skill trainers to Rwandans who have low or no experience in using the internet.

The programme will also provide more in-depth training to ordinary citizens on how to use e-government services.

One of the partners that are helping in bridging the digital gap in public servants, the workforce and the general population in Rwanda is ICDL Africa.

ICDL is the world’s leading computer skills certification. To date more than 15 million people have engaged with the ICDL programme, in over 100 countries.

Since 2015, the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of ICT and Innovation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ICDL Africa to train the workforce and the general population in digital skills to enhance efficiency.

ICDL offers training in different categories such as ICDL Workforce – Digital skills for employability and productivity – consisting of Essential Skills, Office Productivity, and Good practice modules.

The ICDL Professional Digital skills for occupational effectiveness – consisting of Creative, entrepreneurial and computational skills.

Officials from the ministry of ICT and Innovation said that about 60 percent of Rwandans are below 35 years old and working in public or private institutions stressing the need for extra effort to equip the youth with the necessary ICT skills.

ICDL Africa has partnered with different institutions and offered training to their workforce since opening its office in Rwanda, including the Ministry of Defense, National Police, Rwanda Revenue Authority, Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), University of Tourism, Technology and Business Studies (UTB) and Africa Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) among others with the aim to equip them with the digital skills that are applicable to enhance their productivity.

The partnership signed between ICDL Africa and the then Ministry of Youth and ICT currently the Ministry of ICT and Innovation in Rwanda aims to train 85,000 Public servants by 2023.

So far over 65,000 public servants have been trained.

ICDL has different programmes namely digital skills for the workforce to increase employability and productivity, digital skills for occupational effectiveness, digital understanding for business managers, and digital skills programme for students as well as ordinary citizens.

Fanfan Rwanyindo, the Minister of labour in Rwanda said that the recorded success in bridging digital literacy gap on based on the government’s target to have all services digitized and a seven-year programme.

“ICDL certification will enable employability in labour market,” she said.

According to experts, 90 percent of all jobs in the near future will require a certain digital degree.