Schools To Receive CBC Grade Four Textbooks In November

Seven publishing companies, including the government one Kenya Literature Bureau (KLB) that had the tender to supply schools with grade four textbooks under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) have promised that they will have the books delivered by November.

The publishers will publish 14 textbooks, which will be supplied to schools in January 2020 when the government rolls out the CBC system to grade four.

The new curriculum, 2-6-3-3-3 system had already been rolled out for early childhood education level to grade three this year, 2019.

There are about 1.2 million grade four learners in the country. The publishing companies will print 16 million textbooks for all the 14 subjects.

The confirmation to deliver books comes after there were concerns brought up by the Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) that the ministry of education was delaying in giving out guidelines for the books to be published.

“The ministry of education opened the tender and evaluation report of the grade four textbooks. We will have them printed before we begin delivery to both public and private schools in November,” said KPA chairman Lawrence Njagi, during the Nairobi book fair media briefing.

Before the printing of the books begins in November, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), education experts and publishers will convene at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology from Monday, September 23^rd to Wednesday, September 25^th to polish the approved books.

The KPA chairman who was speaking during the Nairobi International Book Fair whose theme is read, apply and freedom, intended to bring out the importance of books and the role they play in our daily lives, said that in line with the theme, he hoped that the Ministry of Education will hasten the process of book publishing to ensure that they are ready in good time.

“We are happy that the Ministry of Education is involving Kenyan Publishers Association in key decision making even as the CBC rollout continues,” he said.

“As a department, with the support of other units, we will ensure that we work extra hard to see the CBC Grade four books are submitted in good time,” he added.