KICD Releases New Literature and Fasihi Set books for 2021 – 2025
Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) is set to replace literature books for both English and Kiswahili in schools and Teacher Training Colleges.
KICD has then moved to ask publishers to provide print literary texts in English and Kiswahili for evaluation this month.
The books will replace the ones currently being used in schools that were introduced in 2018.
For English Literature, submissions required a novel, a play, and an anthology of short stories. On the other hand for Kiswahili had areas of Fasihi ya Kiswahili (Kiswahili Literature), tamthilia (play), riwaya (novel), and hadithi fupi (short stories) for submission.
The call is set to cause great competition as the book market is the most lucrative in the industry, with huge sales guaranteed over four years.
Set books are also the target of book pirates who benefit from the huge market. For instance, in this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, there were 751, 150 candidates who registered for the national examinations.
The new literature books are going to be studied by learners who shall join Form 3 in the coming year in April in the reorganized congested schools’ calendar. The students are in Form One at the moment. The books shall be studies for a period of four years.
This year, the Ministry of Education began purchasing the books directly this year from publishers and then supplying them to schools. The Ministry of Education has also been buying and supplying books to schools since the year 2018.
The idea has received rave reviews for meeting the 1:1 student to book ratio but has also led to some bookshops running out of business.
“The literary texts should be submitted for secondary Form Three and Four students and teacher trainees in teacher training colleges.
The materials presented for evaluation and granted approval will be used in Kenyan Education institutions,” said KICD CEO Charles Ong’ondo.
Publishers are set to make their submissions by midday March 18, 2021. Interested publishers must formally confirm the materials they want to submit by Friday this week.
All publishers shall pay a submission and evaluation fee of Sh. 140,000.
Publishers who will be successful and expected to make corrections will pay Sh. 100,000 for the process of ‘corrections in-puting’. This is according to the guidelines released by KICD.
KICD expects the evaluation to be complete by the 6th of April, 2021, this year. After that, the Curriculum Technical Committee will give formal approval of the Committee’s recommendations and announce results on the 16th of April, 2021.
A couple of days after that, the KICD council will give formal approval of the committee’s recommendations and then announce results on April 16.
Following claims of corruption in the selection process, LICD introduced ‘blind’ tendering where manuscripts are submitted as spiral-bound copies bearing no identification to the publisher, title of the book, or author.
At the moment publishers are preparing materials for Grade Six, in the competency-based curriculum.
In the past month, publishers complained that the time given to prepare the books was not enough.