The government, on Monday, recalled a series of books distributed for the new curriculum owing to glaring mistakes.
The books, distributed earlier this year, were found to contain glaring errors involving calculations, grammar and spelling mistakes.
The books were meant for Grades one, two and three.
In one of the books, a picture from a set is labelled as popcorn yet it is a biscuit.
In another, a clock contains two arms with the longer representing minutes and the shorter indicating hours yet the time accompanying the image indicates the wrong time.
In a statement, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) warned headteachers over an increase in substandard books urging them to ensure their institution's books meet the set requirements.
“This has been a major setback in the publishing industry. Most of the books in the market have barely gone through any approval but are considered as trusted sources of information, which is very dangerous for the learners and bad for business.
“Textbooks are important in curriculum delivery. They must be the right ones to ensure learners are not treated to misleading content,” stated KICD director Julius Jwan.
On January 1, Principal Secretary for Early Learning and Basic Education Belio Kipsang revealed that the government distributed 12.5 million books to the public primary schools.7.8 million of the books were for the Grade Literacy, popularly known as “Tusome” while 4.35 million others were for the Early Grade Mathematics for grade two and three pupils.
“The textbooks are aligned to Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) that the Government has rolled out in grades one to three from the 2019 calendar year,” stated Kipsang then.
