Smart Connect: Airtel Internet Addressing Internet Connectivity Gaps in Kenya

As the world marks International Day of Education on 24th January, Kenya's digital learning revolution shows youth aren't just beneficiaries of change, they are driving it.

Imagine a classroom where learning does not stop at the school bell, where students do not just follow lessons, but challenge them, expand them and make them their own. This is no futuristic vision. In Kenya today, digital connectivity is transforming classrooms from spaces of passive instruction into hubs of curiosity, creativity, and co-creation and the change is being driven by the youth, who are leveraging technology not just to consume knowledge, but to shape it.

At Canon Apolo Primary School in Makadara, a Grade 5 student followed up on a lesson about properties of matter by researching after school. The next morning, he walked into class brimming with questions and new insights to share with his classmates and teacher. "They own the lesson," says William Lusimbo, the Head of Institution and science teacher at the school, describing how students now actively shape their learning journey. This is what co-creation looks like in practice. And it's happening because of something as fundamental as internet access.

As the world marks the International Day of Education on January 24 under the UNESCO theme "The power of youth in co-creating education," Kenya offers a glimpse of what happens when young people are given the digital tools to shape their own learning. But the path there requires closing a connectivity gap that still leaves most African schools behind.

According to the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD only 40 per cent of primary schools across Africa have internet access. In Kenya, the picture is sharper: just 10.7 percent of households own a computer, and only 23.8 percent have reliable internet, with rural communities facing the steepest barriers, according to Kenya Housing and Kenya Demographic Household Survey. In schools, fewer than half of secondary institutions have operational computer labs, and among those, fewer than half are connected to the internet.

For teachers like Mary Rono, Head of Institution at Busara Comprehensive School in Kayole, Nairobi County, these numbers were once her daily reality. With159 students crammed into a single classroom and textbooks shared at a ratio of one to 10, lessons felt impossible. Teachers had to write homework questions on the blackboard because there weren't enough materials to go around.

"Reaching every child was very difficult," Rono recalls. Absenteeism was high. Academic performance lagged. Discipline suffered. And Busara ranked poorly in their zone.

Then came connectivity. Through a $57 million partnership between Airtel Africa and UNICEF, 191 public primary schools across Kenya now receive 300 gigabytes of data every month. The program, which started running from September 2022 after a pilot, provides schools with reliable internet while zero-rating access to the Kenya Education Cloud and Elimika platforms loaded with video lessons, audio classes, and curriculum-aligned resources from pre-primary to Grade 9. The move aligns with Airtel Africa’s five-year partnership with UNICEF to scale digital learning across 13 countries.

At Busara, the changes came quickly. Attendance improved as students showed up eager to access online content and there was a positive behaviour change. Teachers began preparing lessons digitally, pulling from a library of resources they'd never had before. Academic performance improved. Busara jumped to second place in their sub-county, just behind one of Nairobi's top-performing academies. Students were accepted into elite schools like Alliance High School and Maranda.

But the transformation went beyond test scores. Two Busara students, using the school's internet to upload their music to YouTube, were offered spots at a music academy in Italy.

"It is a game changer," Rono says.

For Fredrick Odhiambo, a Maths and computer teacher at Busara, the shift shows up in his coding classes. Teaching programming used to be theoretical. Now, with reliable internet, students can access real coding environments and practice what they learn. He's watched learners move from "approaching expectation" to "exceeding expectation."

At Canon Apolo, Lusimbo sees it in the creative arts room, where students design projects inspired by examples, they find online - like the pen holder a Grade 5 class built after watching a tutorial. Science lessons that once felt abstract now come alive through video demonstrations and virtual labs.

"When you bring those things to reality," Lusimbo says, "they find it very interesting."

This is youth co-creation in action, not as a buzzword, but as a lived experience. Students aren't passively consuming lessons anymore. They're researching ahead of class, creating content, connecting with peers abroad, and finding pathways their schools couldn't have offered a few years ago. The model is built to last. Unlike short-term pilot projects that collapse when funding dries up, the Airtel-UNICEF partnership provides guaranteed monthly data allocations, ensuring that schools can plan curriculum around connectivity rather than ration it. The zero-rated platforms mean students and teachers can access learning resources without worrying about cost.

As Kenya moves toward universal digital literacy, these 191 schools are proving what's possible when infrastructure meets ambition.