[Photo/courtesy]Education secretary Fred Matiang’is directive that pupils should henceforth use only one government-approved text book for every subject will come as a big relief to many parents.This is because parents have for many years suffered immense financial loss at the hands of cartels who, through collusion with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) officials, have continuously added onto the course-approved text books list.The number of official course books has increased to six per subject, by the minister’s count.Parents are required to buy their children up to four textbooks per subject, a huge financial burden that does not in any way improve the quality of learning.The learners cannot possibly cover all the books within the allocated school terms, and most are untouched at the end of the year.Even worse is that the course books tend to have similar content, defeating the purpose for the multiple purchases.As Dr Matiang’i noted, marketing managers of publishing firms and corrupt KICD officials have been the biggest beneficiaries of the regressive policy.

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