The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has denied that it is responsible for the flooding of unwanted textbooks in public schools.
In its defence, KICD claimed that it had supplied enough books and attributed the surplus books to the mass transfer of students from one school to another during the covid-19 pandemic.
This comes after headteachers and leaders have cried foul over the continuous dumping of unwanted books in the schools by printers.
KICD Director Prof Charles Ong'ondo explained that the flooding had affected a few schools after their students were transferred at the height of the pandemic.
"A few schools that were affected by the transfers had problems with the books supply, but we are reviewing this problem,” he stated.
The KICD Director further dismissed claims that set books were being changed every year.
Ong'ondo disclosed that KICD had evaluated all the books needed by schools and forwarded books that met the threshold to teachers.
Teachers are then supposed to pick one book per subject and use the others for reference.
In some cases, some schools were forced to buy plastic water tanks in which they would store the surplus books as their stores were full to capacity.
Gilgil Member of Parliament Martha Wangari had earlier raised concern over the possible loss of millions of shillings in the procurement of textbooks for public schools as they were supplied with books they did not need.
“It’s time that we allowed teachers to procure the books that they need and we should put a threshold on the amount used to buy the books,” she said.
Wangari added that tens of schools in the country had been oversupplied with books that they did not require while set books were being changed every year.
Speaking to the press at Central Primary School in Naivasha, the director stated KICD was in the process of issuing books to all Grade Five pupils in the country.
Ong'ondo affirmed that the government plans to build more classes in public schools in line with the 8-4-4 to the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) transition.
