Kenyan Wits

Since the Presidentordered all learning institutions in Kenya to be closed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic ,students have become unoccupied as they stay at home to avert the spread of thevirus. Consequently, scholarshave been forced to wait for governments and health workers to bring thepandemic into control for schools to open and learning to resume. However, USIU – Kenya,(United States International University) is taking no chance in providingquality and timely education for its scholars. During the two weekspreceding the president’s announcement, the institution has indulged itsstudents in online learning through its advanced online platform, Blackboardfor instructional purposes and Zoom as their video conferencing tool. The innovativecombination lets interaction between lectures and students and access tolearning recourses seamless, thus providing a great learning experience withoutthe need for brick and mortar lecture rooms. Students use theirlaptops and internet to access th...

Once in a while the Ministry of Education announces the HELB waiver for all HELB beneficiaries in Kenya. This announcement is yet to be made in 2020. This announcement comes with a sigh of relief for many yet in real terms is not beneficial to many as expected. First, for the sake ofclarity, a waiver is a voluntary removal of a certain charge or money owned.The HELB loan waiver is meant to reduce the amount of money required to be paidby a HELB beneficiary. At least that’s what most expect. Annually the Minister ofEducation would announce a waiver on HELB loans. It comes in differentpercentages for instance 80% or 100%waiver that CS Amina gave in 2018 . This waiver however usually applies topenalties only and not the entire loan amount. Also, you are given thecondition to repay your entire loan in a lump sum over about 3 months to enjoythe HELB penalty waiver. Well, this doesn’t seem fair! The idea behind thewaiver is to make it easier for HELB beneficiaries to repay their loans fromth...

On Friday the 13 th ; a day synonymous with bad luck, the first case of Coronavirus was confirmed in Kenya. What followed were events we only witness in movies. The Nairobi Stock Exchange experienced a 120 Billion shillings wipeout , sanitizer and soap shelves in supermarkets started getting cleared and as typical for Kenyans, social media was washed with coronavirus-related memes. It’s quite clear there’sa little panic in the air, but the memes are keeping people alive per se. Yet wemust take serious precautions to protect ourselves from this pandemic as WHOputs it. The myth that Africansare immune to the virus was debunked yesterday. Yet that’s only a tip of theiceberg in the misinformation spreading online. This is why I seriouslypropose that each of us takes a keen interest in understanding the virus, howit spreads, its incubation period, signs and symptoms, statistics of recoveryand death, ways of preventing and containing the virus among other things. And don’t just read from eve...