Microsoft champions growth of IT Academy in Kenya
December 6, 2007

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology becomes the first university in Kenya to operationalise the Microsoft IT Academy in a full-scale.

In an effort to grow the local software economy in Kenya, the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) has deployed and full-fledged Microsoft IT Academy in the country.

The Microsoft IT Academy now fully entrenched to the JKUAT’s curricula aims to establish technology training courses and develops students’ IT skills.

“With Kenya targeting to be a key software outsourcing destination, the supply of skilled labour for software development, IT and Database Administration has to be steady and dependable and institutions of higher learning need to deliver the teaching of modern programming languages that are relevant to the local industry” said Professor Mabel Imbuga, the JKUAT’s Deputy Vice Chancellor.

The university said Professor Imbuga will now be in a position to attract international companies with the cost savings and quality to spur the software industry.

At the initial stage JKUAT has positioned itself for the MS IT Academy by engaging four lecturers certified as instructors who will be training on .NET Framework 2.0, Programming language and Database development using Microsoft SQL Server and hopes to increase this number as demand grows.

“Currently, Microsoft has three higher learning institutions enrolled in Kenya, including the Strathmore, Kenya College of Communications & Technology (KCCT) and the University of Nairobi,” says Emmanuel Birech, developer and platform evangelist at Microsoft East and Southern Africa (ESA).

According to the Dr. Waweru Mwangi, the Dean of the faculty of Information Technology, the program evolved under the guidance of educators with the core mission of enabling academic institutions to offer world-class computer technology curriculum enriched with real-world skills.

JKUAT has 700 undergraduate students, comprising 400 bachelors, and 300 diploma and certificate students studying within the centre for Information Technology making it the largest IT and computer science faculty in the country. The main courses offered through the institute of Information technology include;         Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Masters of Science in Information Technology, Diploma and Certificate in Information Technology and Certificate in Information Technology.

“Students stand to benefit enormously from the Microsoft IT Academy because the initiative provides an the infrastructure and information needed to craft the right course offerings from an academic resource centre with contributions from professors from universities the world over, align to industry hiring needs, and deliver a dynamic learning experience to a diverse community” added Dr Mwangi.

Benefit to learning institutions
While the training programmes at the University initially targeted the science and engineering students, the access to Microsoft IT Academy training is not limited to those fields of study. Any student at the participating at the university can enrol in the programme and thus benefit from innovative IT education.

The program enables academic institutions to offer world-class technology curriculum to help students acquire cutting-edge and in demand IT skills and further provide rich online learning resources for anytime, anywhere learning for both instructor professional development and for student hands-on learning.

“We aim to make the programme broadly available to students joining the university and specializing in other disciplines as well. We are very honoured to be able to play an important role in empowering these students to take control of their careers in the IT industry,” says Dr. Mwangi.

Training courses can also be delivered on flexible terms, either full-time, part-time or as a component of an existing field of study – depending on how the university has structured the training course.

In order to offer the highest quality of training to students in Kenya, Microsoft has committed a substantial amount of money to ensuring that JKUAT is equipped with both the hardware and software to deliver the training.

To this extent, hardware grants are on offer as well as free licences to use Microsoft development and productivity tools for academic purposes, maximising students’ access to technology without the need for spending a lot of money.

“We would like to thank Microsoft for its important contributions in furthering technology literacy and education in Mozambique with these academies.  Having a giant of the software world in a partnership like this - and having access to the right technology tools - only helps to improve our abilities to deliver quality technology education to our students,” Dr. Mwangi said.