Publishers explain delays in releasing of CBC textbooks

Publishers have moved to calm public concerns about delays in issuing textbooks for Grade Nine under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), explaining that books needed to be revised and updated.

The revisions are meant to reflect changing realities and educational reforms, and the process aims to reduce the content load for students.

The process, being undertaken by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), arose from the work of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), which was appointed by President William Ruto on 30 September 2022.

More than 80 percent of the required textbooks have been delivered to schools, said the Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) at a press briefing in Nairobi yesterday. The rest will be in schools by January 13, KPA chairperson Kiarie Kamau said.

Textbooks for grades Five, Six, Seven and Eight will be ready towards the end of February, he added.

The revision process, he said, “doesn’t mean that there are no books available”, adding that enough relevant textbooks are in circulation in bookshops and schools for all learning areas.

Materials produced before the revision process started, Kamau said, still meet the needs of students and teachers in these grades. PWPER had recommended that these materials continue to be used during the transition.

Annual event

The government has distributed 9.9 million textbooks to public schools across the country, said Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang on Monday while touring public primary schools in Kajiado county.

“We have distributed books to all learning areas on a ratio of one-to-one. One book to one … pupil in the nine learning areas,” the PS.

The distribution of textbooks to schools has been an annual event since the inception of CBC.

The textbooks being distributed by publishers are for Pre-technical Studies, Agriculture, English, Mathematics, CRE, Integrated Science, Kiswahili, Islamic Religious Education, and Social Studies.

Besides the CBC textbooks, KICDe had also approved other books for complementary learning, KPA said.

“There is a wide variety of these learning materials developed by different publishers covering learning areas right from Pre-Primary 1 up to Grade Nine, and these books are available in bookshops,” Kamau said.

Books in other areas that support lifelong learning, including storybooks for children, novellas for young adults, full-length creative works, biographies, and autobiographies, are also available, KPA said.

These books are available in bookshops, libraries, and schools, he added.

“As such, parents, teachers and all those who wish to purchase the books should visit bookshops and [buy them],” he said.
Buyers can call +254724255848 for more information on how to find the books if they are not available in bookshops.

Parents and teachers had asked publishers to shed light on the matter of textbooks for CBC.

“CBC textbooks for Grade Nine learners are in the final stages of distribution to all public schools in the country, in line with the government policy of buying core textbooks for all learners in the ratio of one-to-one,” Kamau said.

Learning areas

And following PWPER’s recommendations, the number of learning areas were reduced as follows: Lower Primary, from nine to seven; Upper Primary, from 10 to eight; and Junior Secondary, from 14 to 9.

Home Science, Agriculture and Nutrition were merged into Agriculture; Integrated Science and Health Education were combined to form Integrated Science; and Social Studies and Life Skills folded into Social Studies.

In this process, Computer Science, Business Studies and Pre-Technical Studies are now under Pre-Technical Studies; while Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Physical Education and Sports were merged into Creative Arts and Sports.