Winner of school laptops bid to be known next week

Excited Standard One pupils at Shauri Moyo Primary School in Kisumu crowd around a laptop. The government will announce the winner of a tender to supply 1.3 million laptops from nine firms which bid next week. Photo/FILE 

By OKUTTAH MARK

In Summary

• Nine firms bid for the lucrative tender, with one vendor placing a double bid in a process that saw the lowest bidder quote Sh28.7 billion which was more than three times the budget.
• The overall project budget is Sh17.5 billion, which includes infrastructure, security, content and training.

The winning supplier of the 1.3 million laptops bid for Standard One will be announced early next week as the government picked secondary school teachers to train their primary school colleagues on how to use the machines.

Nine firms bid for the lucrative tender, with one vendor placing a double bid in a process that saw the lowest bidder quote Sh28.7 billion which was more than three times the budget.

HP Commercial the lowest bidder quoted Sh28.7 billion, with a unit price of Sh20,639. Chinese firm Huawei PTE Ltd, the highest bidder quoted Sh60.5 billion.

Others are Samsung Electronics (Sh39.1 billion), Symphony Technologies (Sh38 billion), Haier Technologies (Sh34 billion), ZTE Corporation (Sh33 billion) and Telcom Kenya (Sh32 billion).

Mastec EA Ltd placed two bids quoting Sh32.6 billion in one and Sh31.3 billion in another while Shen Zhen Auto Digital quoted Sh30.3 billion.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang, Thursday said they had resolved the challenge they had on the pricing and the firm to supply the machines would now be revealed next week.

READ: Tough rules for firms eyeing laptops tender

“The government is committed to seeing this project succeed and we shall announce the winning bidder either on Monday or Tuesday,” said Dr Kipsang when he opened the training of teachers Thursday at the Kenya Institute Curriculum Development. 

The Ministry of Education picked 150 trainers, most from secondary schools who will undergo a two-day training after which they will be sent across the country to train the 60,000 teachers who will be handling the laptops.

“We do not want to disrupt the teaching calendar and also the examination dates. We will make sure we do the training in local stations where the trainees will be able to teach and attend training at the same time,” said the PS.

The overall project budget is Sh17.5 billion, which includes infrastructure, security, content and training.

According to the ministry’s budget, Sh9.8 billion has been set aside for buying the laptops, Sh800 million for training, Sh500 million for digital content and Sh5.8 billion for setting up computer laboratories in 10 primary schools in each of the country’s 290 constituencies.

The ministry also seeks to procure 20,637 printers and to distribute a similar number of projectors to each primary school across the country.