Government to distribute 2.7 million books in primary schools

Ministry of Education will distribute more than 2.7 million books to Standard One and Two pupils across the country to improve reading.

Education Secretary Leah Rotich Wednesday said the project is part of the Tusome Early Literacy Programme, which aims at increasing learning outcomes of some 5.4 million pupils in 22,600 primary schools.

The Tusome Programme is a four-year initiative aimed at improving the teaching and learning of English and Kiswahili in public and alternative basic education institutions (APBET) across the country.

Speaking Wednesday, Rotich said 1,000 APBET are targeted in the multi-billion programme whose objective is to improve access to appropriate textbooks and supplementary materials in schools.

The Sh5 billion project is a partnership between Ministry of Education, United States Agency for International Development (USAid) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development.

Some 2.1 million English and Kiswahili books have already been printed for distribution. Riotich said the printing of another set of 600,000 books is supposed to have been completed by the end of last month.

She said the first phase of distribution of the books kicked off last week. Education PS Belio Kipsang said all targeted children should be able to read and write by the time they join Standard Three.