ICTs and Internet access has the potential to enhance the quality of education at all levels and to increase access to education. The benefits of ICT and broadband in education have been well articulated in the report by the UN broadband commission working group on education. See Technology Broadband & Education, 2013.

The challenge has always been the cost of equipping educational institutions with ICT and providing affordable Internet access, particularly for the large number of schools in a country. For example, Kenya had a total 8,747 secondary schools and 29,460 primary schools in 2014 according Economic Survey 2015.

The secondary schools had a total enrolment of 2.3 million students in the year 2014. The cost of providing Internet access to all secondary schools would therefore be very high. The SCI intends to create a platform through which public and private sectors can partner in an effort to provide scalable and sustainabile ICT and Internet access to schools.