Last year in January, Education technocrats announced that the government had begun a campaign to ensure each child in school had textbooks.
The venture seemed to start off and gain approval, then suddenly flopped.
The government is between a rock and a hard place 18 months down the line as tough questions arise on why the project failed to deliver textbooks for classes 4,5 and 6.
The problem has arisen despite deducting millions of shillings from school capitation in all primary and secondary schools.
Education ministry officials last week were pressed to explain to parliamentarians why some classes had not received textbooks.
Of concern is where the funds to buy textbooks for three classes went.
Education CS George Magoha, who took office in March, said he was not aware of the disparity in the distribution of textbooks until recently.
"I was briefed that money had been taken away from headteachers and books had been bought and distributed to them. But the facts I received this morning are that during book distribution, three classes did not receive the books as it was not economically viable in the new curriculum," Magoha told MPs on Thursday.
PS Belio Kipsang, who is the ministry accounting officer and has been in that post for seven years, said buying textbooks for these classes would be uneconomical.
He said this is due to the fact that the three classes are to undergo the transition from the current 8-4-4 education system to the new 2-6-6-3 curriculum and this would render the books useless before the expiry of their shelf life.
However, Kipsang announced that the government has considered distributing textbooks for Classes 5 and 6 beginning in January next year.
Standard 4 will, however, miss out on the textbooks as the government says it will be uneconomical to provide the books as the class will undergo syllabus change in January.
"We have set aside Sh700 million to distribute books in Standards 5 and 6... We will begin procurement right away and by January, the books will be in school," Kipsang said.
It is not clear if the money to be used are funds the government has been deducting from headteachers in the last two financial years.
The textbooks will be provided in the ratio of 1:3, unlike previous classes that are had 1:1 one book per child.
Donor funds
The purchase of books was heavily supported by two donor projects from USAID and the World Bank.
The first was a Sh8.84 billion funding in a project called Kenya Primary Education Development Project that kicked off in 2013.
The USAID fund aimed at improving learning outcomes in primary schools.
The agency and the government agreed on providing textbooks in English, Kiswahili and Mathematics. A status report on the project shows that Sh3.45 billion has been spent on the project to provide 7.6 million textbooks, particularly for Standards 1,2 and 3.
A second grant was received in 2017 to improve the quality of education in secondary schools and ensure a better transition from primary.
The World Bank agreed on a Sh20 billion grant to the project.
It covered 7,852 primary schools and 2,147 secondary schools in 110 subcounties in 30 counties where learning was below par.
Textbooks were an integral part of the project.
During this period that the plan to centralise book distribution was developed at the recommendation of theWorld Bank.
The project would ensure providing books in Standards 7 and 8 to improve transition that was below 70 per cent.
It later took care of all classes in secondary school, each learner getting textbooks at a ratio of 1:1.
With these classes covered, the government was left with three classes.
Since the project was not implemented countrywide, the ministry deducted the capitation from primary and secondary schools to cater for those not covered.
Oversupply
Principals reported an oversupply of books in the 1:1 distribution.
However, the Education ministry insists that it used data provided by headteachers to distribute the books and said oversupply could have been caused by dishonest school heads.
But it is a policy adopted earlier this year that would open up a debate and raise questions about the integrity of the project.
In January, the ministry said students in secondary schools would keep all textbooks issued to them from Forms 1 to 4.
This would mean students would proceed to the next class with the textbooks they acquired in the last class and will be allocated new books for their new classes.
All books would be returned after Form 4.
The move was sharply criticised by teachers and principals who questioned the rationale behind it, saying schools still suffered from the inadequacy of other learning materials and some classes lacked books.
It is also unclear why the government pushed to have some classes transition with books yet some classes never received books since the beginning of the project.
Edited by R.Wamochie
