The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development has released a new list of Literature and Fasihi set-books that are going to be used in secondary schools and teacher training colleges.
The set books have replaced those introduced in 2018 and shall be used for the next five years. This is great news for the publishers that won over KICD and will now enjoy a steady income for the next five years.
Paul B.Vitta’s novel, Fathers of Nations, has been the one chosen as the English Literatue compulsory text.
Fathers of Nations has replaced Blossoms of the Savannah whose author is Henry Ole Kulet (Long Horn Publishers).
The anthology A Silence Song and other Stories replaces Memories we lost.
On the other hand in Kiswahili, John Habwe’s Cheche za Moto replaces Assumpta K Matei’s Chozi la Heri as the compulsory text.
The selected anthology of short stories in Fasihi will now be Mapambazuko ya Machweo which replaces Tumbo Lisiloshiba.
Teachers Training Colleges will see Samuel Wachira’s Spiders Web studied as Mzigo wa Kichaa is also studied at Diploma levels.
Even after the publishers won the tenders they have been instructed to make necessary changes suggested during the evaluation exercise.
About the Evaluation exercise
After the process of technical evaluation has been finalized, book entried are scored out of 80 percent and thereafter given the opportunity to make a financial bid. At this stage, the publishers give the prices of their books. The financial bid accounts for 20 percent.
In a quite weird procedure, the lowest bid gets awarded the full marks while other bidders score according to how they rank against one another.
Publishers do engage in unfair competition as they bid lower prices. This is because the lower the bid, the higher the chances of being selected.
This concept of ‘low bids’ has been criticized as it seems to be counter-productive as it means that it leads to greatly reduced earnings on the part of the authors and publishers.