Mathematics should be an optional subject in CBC senior school

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

23 March 2025

When the ministry of education approved the use of calculators in Kenyan secondary schools in the early 2000s, many citizens objected to the policy arguing that this move would water down the mathematical proficiency in the country. What the protestors did not understand was that mathematics at secondary school is not about the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers.

Such arithmetic manipulations are cumbersome and stand in the way pupils learning important mathematical ideas like trigonometry, calculus and the like. Arithmetic is thoroughly taught in lower primary school and there is no need to strain students with long divisions or multiplications.

I remembered this incident last week in the wake of public protests against the ministry of education announcement that mathematics will not be a compulsory subject at senior secondary under the CBC system of education. By coincidence, this announcement came on a day when I was attending a CBC sensitization workshop conducted the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) for secondary school managers and academic heads.

This optional status of mathematics was mentioned but none of the teachers and school managers present expressed any objection to it. So, why was the general public objecting to this policy yet professional educators are not? I think it boils down to resistance to change.

Nevertheless; we must ask whether it is necessary to make mathematics compulsory at senior school. To answer that, one needs to look at the junior secondary school (JSS) mathematics syllabus and ask if the content covers enough for the average person. Curiously, none of the objectors are making reference to the contents of the syllabus!

Now, despite being domiciled in primary school, Junior secondary school (JSS) is NOT primary school! I have looked at the mathematics syllabus of JSS and compared it to that of 8-4-4 secondary school. The JSS content is equivalent to approximately form 3. Indeed, some content from form 4 is covered in JSS, for example, topics in statistics and trigonometry.

My view is that it is not necessary to make mathematics compulsory at senior secondary. Forcing students to take subjects that they don’t need achieves nothing positive: it only makes learners dislike the learning process!

For this reason, Mathematics in CBC will only be compulsory for students in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) career path. Those in the humanities, arts and sports will not be forced to take it; but, they can if they wish.