Your child may not be getting the necessary reading materials in class because some teachers have locked up textbooks for safety.
A new World Bank report found that the fear of paying for lost books, some teachers’ laziness and absenteeism could make your child leave school without properly interacting with the learning materials.
The report also found that governments were not setting aside enough funds to make books available in schools, with some countries adopting the wrong procurement methods for learning materials, leading to losses. The report titled Getting Textbooks to Every Child in Sub-Saharan Africa further revealed that most governments did not have the correct number of books dispatched to schools as data on students’ enrolment was scanty. The report released this week further said that some teachers preferred to copy the text from the books on the blackboard during lessons. The Kenyan Government has been making efforts to deliver teaching and learning materials in public schools.
Officials of the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kessha) and the Kenya Primary School Heads Association (Kepsha) yesterday said headteachers had been advised to allow children to get access to the books. “The reason the books were bought was for children to read. It beats logic for anyone to keep them,” said Kahi Indimuli, the Kessha national chairman. The findings of the report are likely to catch the attention of top Ministry of Education officials, coming just days after the Government announced it had completed the distribution of 33 million textbooks to public schools.
