Pupils in 20,000 primary schools in Kenya to benefit from mathematics books grant

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang

NAIROBI: More than 20,000 public primary schools are set to benefit from two million mathematics textbooks.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang said so far the Government has distributed 2,337,474 mathematics textbooks through the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) programme. Kenya had received a grant of Sh8.8 billion ($88 million) from GPE.

"The textbooks, to benefit about six million pupils, aims at strengthening and improving the teaching and learning of mathematics in Standard One and Two in all public primary and informal schools in the country," said Dr Kipsang.

Kipsang said some 40,000 teachers will be trained on new methodologies on early grade mathematics through improved in-service training and regular pedagogical supervision and support.

GPE officials from Washington, jointly with World Bank and ministry officials, will tour over 25 primary schools and two teacher training colleges to assess the status of the implementation of the project.

"The principle underlying the project is that early mastery of numeracy skills is the basis of quality education, particularly as it relates to developing the foundation for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in later years of schooling," said Kipsang during Kenya Primary Education Development Project joint implementation support mission meeting at Jogoo House yesterday.

Statistics show only 22 per cent of students who join university take STEM subjects. This means less than 17,600 out of the 80,000 students expected to join university this year will take up science courses.