High costs for Kenian textbooks

In Kenia, there is a national outcry over the high cost of textbooks in the already difficult economic circumstances, with parents saying the pricey books have made education expenses unbearable. The reasons are increased taxes and production costs. Coupled with the inflated textbook prices are high costs of living and increased high school fees.
As a consequence parents are reported to have spent lots of christmas savings on textbooks since the costs of the purchasing costs have climbed.

According to teachers, the ratio of students to books in biology classes is 3:1, for agriculture it is worse, at 6:1. Ideally, the ratio should be 1:1. In several schools, it is as terrible as 10:1.

Education analysts have further questioned the government’s move to impose taxes on textbooks, arguing that through Free Primary Education programme — which makes the government the biggest purchaser of textbooks — meant the government was practically taxing itself.

Editorial team (sz)

Sources

Photo credit: Kenya-Kibera primary school-002 by ARC / CC BY 2.0
Information source: nation.co.ke