U-turn: Maths will be a mandatory subject in Senior schools

Education CS Julius Ogamba and Basic Education PS Julius Bitok at KICC, Nairobi on Thursday, April 24. [MoE]

Mathematics will remain compulsory in primary and senior schools, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba now says.

According to Ogamba, this follows extensive consultations with stakeholders where a proposal last month to make it optional was dropped.

"Majority of stakeholders during competency based county dialogues were of the view that mathematics as a subject should be compulsory in senior school," said Ogamba on Thursday, April 24.

Arts students will now be required to learn a simplified version of the subject.

This is contrary to an initial proposal to make Maths optional for learners under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), marking a drastic shift from the phased out 8-4-4 system.

In the system, students would have taken four compulsory subjects, namely English or Kenya Sign Language, Kiswahili, Physical Education, and Community Service Learning and learners would then have chosen three other subjects from a pool of 38 options.

However, this move has now been dropped by the government.

"We have listened to your concerns, consulted with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), and resolved that some form of mathematics be made compulsory for the two pathways that are not STEM," said Ogamba.

According to the Education CS, students in STEM pathway will take pure mathematics and the other two pathways having a simplified formal math.

"Some form of mathematics will be made compulsory for the two pathways that are not the STEM pathways. This will make us have math in all the three pathways in senior schools," he added.