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The train has left the station, Matiangi tells hesitant educators

Matiangi told the union leaders consultations could not be endless/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 13 – Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi has ruled out any negotiations in the direct supply of books to public schools saying the government will make sure every student is catered for.

Speaking during the launch of the ISO Certification of the Kenya Literature Bureau on Wednesday, the Education Cabinet Secretary stated that core text books will be delivered to schools by January 9.

Matiangi further stated that the initiative will ensure the pupil-textbook ratio is 1:1 through direct supplies to schools.

“This nonsense that we have acquired in society where we go for seminars, go to benchmarking trips and so on and so forth, silly things where we waste money on things that we can actually discuss round the table, we can get researchers, we have Kenyans who have studied these things. We go out there, we call in experts, we have a conversation,” he stated.

“We cannot have consultations for a whole week, two weeks, three months and then we start getting into planes and flying all around the world, in what we call as bench marking things. You know that is how we waste money,” he said.

He further hit out at teachers union officials who stated that no consultations on curriculum reforms took place indicating that it had involved all sectors.

“We will be straight forward and do the work we are supposed to do. We formed the national team that was working on this and put everybody in the education sector on board, everybody including the unions. They sat throughout with us for the last one year,” he said.

“They have been working with us. So when I hear people saying we have not been consulted, I don’t know what else they mean that needs to be done but it is okay. Wait for consultations as you sit under a tree and go to hotels and so on for consultations, we have got some work to do.”

The Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary General Wilson Sossion, a nominated MP, undermined the ongoing education reforms, including the planned rollout of a new curriculum slated for 2018, saying teachers had not been “intensively and extensively consulted.”

He threatened to call for industrial action if their input was not sought.

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But in their resolutions read out and endorsed by the teachers on Thursday during the end of a four-day annual conference in Mombasa, head teachers had said that they will support the government’s efforts towards curriculum reforms.

The head teachers agreed with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) Chief Executive Officer Julius Jwan, who insisted that the curriculum will empower Kenyan children.

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