Call to Fuse East African School Curricula

Panafrican News Agency, September 18, 2000

Nairobi, Kenya

The East African Book Development Association Monday called on the three East African states -- Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania -- to review and harmonise their school curricula to make them relevant for industrial take-off of the region.

Fred Matovu, an official of the association, said the harmonised curricula should have a bias towards scientific excellence, which was a prerequisite for industrialisation.

He was speaking in Nyeri, central Kenya, where he led members of the book sellers and publishers associations from the three countries on a tour of the area.

He appealed for creation of reading lessons in the primary school curricula of the three states.

This, he noted, would help inculcate a reading culture among the people of the area.

Central Provincial Commissioner Peter Kiilu said that most Kenyans stopped reading after completing their formal education.

He also decried the lack of a reading culture among Kenyans, which he said, did not augur well for development, as "an uninformed society is unlikely to make sound decisions."

Kiilu also complained that the cover prices of books in Kenya was beyond the reach of most people and appealed to publishers to re-examine their book production process with a view to making them affordable.

However, for the reading culture to take root in the region, the current war against poverty and other social ills afflicting most of the Africa must be won, "so that, in the future, people would earn enough for their basic needs and have some left to spend on books, newspapers and periodicals," he said.