Battle to control Sh8b budget fuels book wars

The control of Sh8 billion budget is at the centre of school textbooks controversy even as Ministry of Education defended distribution of the learning materials.

It emerged that a special meeting between secondary school heads and top ministry officials allowed supply of more books in a new plan to ensure each child progressed with their books to new class.

The details emerged as Ministry of Education released a distribution schedule complete with data on delivered books per subject per school.

And yesterday, publishers accused school heads of frustrating the direct supply of textbooks, saying audit reports had exposed tricks they used with unscrupulous publishers to siphon billions.

Never achieved

“Schools never had enough books and hence never achieved the 1:1 student book ratio,” said Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) chairperson Lawrence Njangi.

In a statement, Njagi said investigations revealed that unscrupulous heads of schools and some booksellers exchanged “air” for books.

“Books would be ordered from a bookshop, taken to the school to be recorded and then returned again to be sold, leaving millions of children without books,” said Njagi.

A confidential brief to Ministry of Education top officials, seen by Saturday Standard, reveals that powerful book sellers and some publishers who were locked out of the lucrative business are behind the ‘smear campaign’ that now threatens to dent the direct government supply of books to schools.

The revelations come as Government released a report exposing how a decision was made in November last year during a stakeholders meeting to increase supply of books.

The meeting attended by secondary school heads and top ministry officials resolved that each student be allowed to move to the next class with books bought in the previous year.

Previously, no child was allowed to move with their books to the next class.

The new policy shift meant that Form One students would progress with their books to Form Two and later carry the Form Three and Four.

“This was to allow continued curriculum coverage and revision at learner level since the KSCE covers Form 1 to Form 4,” reads the Ministry of Education books distribution report.

This means additional books were to be supplied to cater for deficits occasioned by new admissions and progressions to next classes, report says.

The report reveals that Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed made a pronouncement in December last year calling for execution of the policy. Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kessha) national chairman Kahi Indimuli yesterday confirmed the meeting took place.

“I confirm that we indeed met and agreed that students be allowed to move with their books to the next class until they sit examinations,” said Mr Indimuli.

He said Kessha proposed that once the supply of books reaches maximum level, the monies be channeled to cater for essential tuition items such as laboratories.

The report reveals that the new policy shift is the reason some schools have more books. It is now emerging that schools have failed to make storage arrangements  to frustrate project. “It is incumbent upon schools to at least prepare a place to keep the books,” said Njagi.

He said the distribution of books is based on data provided by the ministry and dismissed oversupply narrative.

Since the publishers have to physically distribute the books to each school, the government prepared a distribution list with the name of the school and the number of students per level per subject,” said Njagi.

He said the Ministry of Education has even employed use of National Education Management Information System to ensure distribution figures are as accurate as possible.

The report exposes how the government has been losing nearly Sh14 billion through inflated text book prices.