Senator Karen Nyamu Bill Proposes New Mandatory Cerificate for Govt Workers
If a bill proposed by Nominated Senator Karen Nyamu passes, all Kenyans may soon be required to present a certificate of digital literacy before obtaining a state job.
PoliticalPulseChat obtained a copy of the Digital Literacy Bill, 2023, which revealed that Nyamu was concerned about the amount spent by the ICT Ministry on digital training.
Nyamu desires that digital training be incorporated into the curriculum and certification offered to save money.
“Currently, every government ministry is spending huge amounts of money in offering Digital training to their workforce to equip them with digital skills,” read the statement in part.
“The Bill proposes that we incorporate the digital training in our education curriculum and also make it a requirement for new entrants to public service to have basic digital certification.”
In addition, she advocated for the decentralization of digital programs by establishing the Digital Literacy Committee.
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The committee will consist of members of the County Executive Committees (CECs) who are responsible for ICT and will be tasked with advising the CS and the National government on ICT policy.
The changes, according to Nyamu, will increase digital literacy in line with President William Ruto’s aim of digitizing his government.
To date, 5,000 government services have been digitized, and more than 1,000 pay invoices have been consolidated to streamline state payments and combat corruption.
According to the Communication Authority of Kenya, by 2021, 94% of the Kenyan population will be covered by the 4G network, but only 44% of the urban population and 17% of the rural population will have internet access.
“The huge number of citizens lack basic digital skills yet they should be main consumers of digital government services and thus risk missing the benefits of efficiency that comes with digitization,” added the bill.
“The Bill proposes the establishment of Community Digital Hubs in every county to facilitate digital training to communities. The Bill also provides that county governments come up with programs to recruit youths as Digital Literacy Cohorts to provide training to communities at the grassroots levels.”
Senator Karen Nyamu Bill Proposes New Mandatory Cerificate for Govt Workers
