KICD should mitigate harm by combing through curriculum

The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) recently came under fire for content found in a Form Three Biology textbook.

The book provides information on ways to prevent assault and HIV infection, including self-control in drinking alcohol, ensuring that blood transfusions only take place in situations of extreme need, and ensuring that medical treatment is sterile.

Already, this advice shifts blame onto persons in situations beyond their control. It is impossible, for instance, for patients to take over the work of hospitals in ensuring that medical equipment is sterile. As well, the need for a blood transfusion is not one that can be adjudicated, or even prevented, by a patient. The advice given, to put it simply, makes no sense.

However, it is not these sections that have had the KICD face the ire of the public. Rather, it is the advice that, for girls to avoid sexual assault, they must dress modestly.

The book emphasises that students must “avoid provoking and tempting other persons into sexual arousal” as “most rape cases are due to such provocations.”

Reading this, it is obvious that although the gender of those being given this advice is not stated, it is targeted at girls, whose clothing is policed around the world, and relied upon when victim-blaming girls who have been assaulted.

That KICD is regurgitating the messaging of rape culture is particularly harmful, especially because, in responding to complaints from the public, KICD stated that it based the curriculum on research conducted in Nigeria, and attached a bibliography of papers that purported to support this research. A quick look into some of the papers, however, points to the complete opposite conclusion.

One paper found that victims of assault were the ones most likely to bring up their dressing in analyzing why they were assaulted. Perpetrators rarely listed dressing as their reason for assaulting women.

The paper concludes by finding that the overwhelming reason for sexual assault is power. Abusers exercise their power, fueled by patriarchy, on their victims. If this is how the Institute conducts its research before preparing its educational material, then our young students are in deep trouble.

Although the process of coming up with the curriculum appears to be rigorous, it is clear that unconscious biases seep through.

In the Biology textbook, the unconscious bias that prioritises victim-blaming over working to abolish patriarchal ideas and create a more equal society has bled not only into how schools are discussing sexual assault, but also injects stigma, as seen in the advice provided on how to prevent HIV infection.

Just as the schools should shift their teaching on assault so that students understand that abuse is not their fault, the teaching on HIV prevention ought to also focus on eliminating stigma, as one who is infected through blood transfusion or unsterilised medical equipment is being taught, under the current curriculum, to blame themselves for not being vigilant enough.

And these biases not only occur in the Biology textbook, they can be found elsewhere. In the accompanying interactive digital content to a Form Three History textbook, for instance, students are taught that one of the benefits of indirect divide and conquer rule by the British in Kenya was that it equipped the natives by preparing them “for future responsibilities after independence.”

Only internalised self-hate can have it so that colonialism is taught as a preparation for independence and responsibility that is being argued to have ostensibly not been there before contact with the British. And whilst this internalised hate is not the fault of the Institute, careful work must be done to ensure that it is not passed on to vulnerable learners.

Perhaps it is true that the shift from the 8-4-4 system to CBC happened too fast, and without any proper rhyme and reason to it. Even so, the worst has already happened. Those responsible must ensure the harm is mitigated by combing through the curriculum and weeding out information that destroys more than it builds.

Ms Njahira is an international lawyer