KICD boss: There are enough books for CBC learners

Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development CEO Charles Ong'ondo during a past interview. [File, Standard] 

The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has dismissed reports of a looming crisis in textbooks for the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).

KICD Chief Executive Officer Charles Ong’ondo yesterday said textbooks for all learning areas, from Pre-primary 1 to Grade 9, are either in schools or in open market ready for use when the academic calendar resumes in January.

Prof Ong’ondo said books for rationalised learning areas at Grade 7 and Grade 8 were also finalised this month and should be in schools and the market from February 2025 after corrections of errors and printing by publishers.

Ong’ondo said the country has spent Sh51 billion on text books, with Sh47 billion paid to publishers, since 2018.  

“The learning areas concerned are agriculture, creative arts and sports and pre-technical studies. The curriculum designs were rationalised in December (this month) so there is no crisis on text books now and even in 2025,” he said in a statement.

But even for these learning areas, the CEO said there are still relevant books that were produced earlier, before rationalisation, on all the strands that form the rationalised learning areas.

“For creative arts and sports, there are books on physical education, visual arts and performing arts. In pre-technical studies, there are books on pre-tech itself, business studies and computer studies. Same to agriculture, there are books on agriculture and home science,” he explained, adding:

“The slight delay on Grade 7 and 8 books in these learning areas was because after the release of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) report in August last year, the curriculum designs had to be rationalised first, before the books would follow.” 

Ong’ondo said that the country was, several years ago, working with a deficit of books, but now some areas have an oversupply.

“We have revised the curriculum designs that were on at that time in accordance with the recommendations of the working party and have also evaluated curriculum support materials in terms of print and digital materials. In particular, print materials have been distributed to schools,” he said.

The KICD boss added that books are issued to all learning areas on a 1:1 ratio, citing that so far, at least 80 per cent of Grade 9 books have already been distributed.

Ong’ondo said textbooks were then rationalised for PP1 to Grade 3, upper primary, Grade 9 and rationalised learning areas in Grade 7 in April, August and December, respectively.

The PWPER, in its report, recommended that KICD reduces the number of learning areas from 9 to 7 at lower primary, 12 to 8 at upper primary and 14 to 9 at junior school in order to address overload and overlaps

The report also stated that learning areas at pre-primary should be five, and seven at senior school.

This saw the Ministry of Education move to rationalising learning areas, a process that commenced in January 2024.

In December last year, Education Principal Secretary, Belio Kipsang said KICD, in consultation with the ministry, rationalised the learning areas from pre-primary to junior school.

At PP1 and PP2, learners have 25 lessons per week, which include five for language, mathematics and environmental activities each, six lessons for creative activities, three for religious activities and one for pastoral/religious instruction programme.

At Grade 1-3 or lower primary, learning areas were reduced from nine to seven and lessons reduced from 35 to 31 per week, including pastoral programme of instruction (PPI).

Hygiene and nutrition activities learning areas were integrated within environmental activities with four lessons per week while creative arts comprise aspects of art and craft, music and physical education with a total of seven lessons.

For upper primary (Grade 4-6), learning areas were reduced from 10 to eight.