Page 43 - KPSA EXCELLENCE MARCH -MAY ONLINE

set books with captivating, global
and challenging impact. No wonder
even after years of set books, we still
do not have global writers.
KCSE literature and fasihi set books
are colonial hangovers. We just do
them for lack of alternative. The
ministry officials are lazy so they
cannot think of better alternatives.
They are not even reading their own
Competency based Curriculum
designs so they can change with
emerging times. Set books are
torturous and insignificant in the
lives of students long after school
life. They are simply entertainment

It is time to question the value the many set books add to our experiencing even after studying
lives especially after graduating from school. How is their close to over 40 titles since 1985!
study helping us in our careers? Time has come for us to The quality of the novels in the
question the validity and the purpose these set books serve. Kenyan market is below standard.
All the world conventions are being questioned. Most of them are cut and paste...
patches lifted here and there.
books meant to help candidates pass that would help them eke a living.
time in schools. They are colonial Look! How many KCSE students With over 36 years of studying set
tools of educational radicalization. end up miserable after form four books, we still have difficulties
They add zero value. yet they studied a whooping ten replacing Ngugi wa Thing’o and
All the years I have taught KCSE set books? Many. Why? Set books the late Chinua Achebe with
set books, I have felt caged, are studied to pass exams and not modern writers set books. Their
deprived and enslaved to think in as a skill from which students can writing has been immortalized in
predetermined ways. For instance, earn a living after school. That is their seasonless novels which have
the character by the name Number the greatest tragedy of our school defied time and age. Our attempts
7 in the short story: ‘the Umbrella systems today. It is just a complete to imitate their style of writing have
Man,’ in Memories we Lost and waste of precious youthful time. terribly backfired.
Other Short Stories currently Look at Maria series that runs on
being studied in high schools, I feel Citizen TV every evening. The 36 years of set books have
abducted by these set books. Set How I wish that high school been fruitless. We migrated our
books are intellectual kidnaps. students are engaged in scripting television to a digital platform to
Instead, high school candidates of such soaps. Our evenings are accommodate many signals to air
should carry out real projects of awash with Mexican junks that if but look at the junk we subject our
writing their own story books. That you turned on television you would children to every day! We watch
way, they can utilize this skill after think you were in Tijuana City, second hard (or is it third hard)
school. Supposing they scripts their Mexico. western junks. Come on...let us
own plays, films, soaps and novels Look at the literary bareness we are revisit the usefulness of set books.

Ashford Gikunda, a career teacher,
is a final year MA student in
Project Planning and Management
at the University of Nairobi.

March - May 2021 KPSA Excellence 43