‘Grave Errors’ in New Curriculum Lower Primary Books, Who is Fooling Who?

Publishers have refuted claims that a number of textbooks being used in lower primary have alarming mistakes.

“Most of the highlighted “errors” have been taken out of context and are just perceptions,” said the Kenya Publishers Association chairman Lawrence Njagi in a statement released on Wednesday.

“We have established that most of the concerns in the mainstream media originate from social media platforms where they have been lifted out of context and adjudged as incorrect,” Mr. Njagi added.

Njagi referred to an example of one of the illustrations in a book where a child in school uniform is shown digging in the school farm as the rest of the pupils are in class. He explained that it could be a form of punishment which sums to child abuse, therefore, making the book correct.

He, however, said that an illustration of a helicopter in a different book was appropriately addressed by the concerned publisher despite it not being a ‘factual’ error. Njagi further added that if genuine errors were pointed out to them, they would be glad to effect corrections at the earliest opportunity.

The social media has been flooded with posts of the alleged errors in a number of pre-primary books causing anxiety among parents and Kenyans at large. Njagi alleged that some of the errors are picked from the old curriculum books and presented as the new curriculum content.

“It is important to distinguish the two and clarify that they address different curriculum dispensations and therefore the content approach and scope may differ,” Njagi explained.

The process of publishing the books starts with experienced subject teachers writing the material, another team of teachers reviews the material and corrects any factual errors before the editors who have expertise edit the work for factual accuracy and language appropriateness.

The material then proceeds to KICD for vetting and approval and do not indicate the publisher’s identity to ensure impartiality.

It is important to, however, note that in March 2018, the education parliamentary committee had demanded explanations from senior ministry officials over errors in textbooks supplied by the government to schools.

The committee chairman, Julius Meli, revealed that they had summoned Ministry’s Permanent Secretary (PS), the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) officials and publishers to explain the errors.

The Committee termed the errors as grave and wished to understand the magnitude to which the errors could affect learning.

Whether KICD addressed the errors or are avoiding the loss of the books estimated to cost 7 billion shillings at the expense of our pupils’ morals is still unclear.