Companies

Text book publishers set for double gains

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Prof Jacob Kaimenyi, the Education secretary. Photo/FILE

Publishers are set to reverse their recent fall in sales from the government’s move to increase capitation grants to public schools besides the looming curriculum review.

The government is set to raise the annual allowances for free primary education (FPE) by 39 per cent and that for subsidised secondary education by 33 per cent, increasing their ability to buy more textbooks and other learning materials.

The increases take effect in the coming fiscal year and will see the grant of each student in public primary schools rise to Sh1,417.8 from the current Sh1,020.

Allowance per student in public secondary schools will increase to Sh4,788 from the current Sh3,600, benefiting firms such as Longhorn Publishers, Oxford East Africa, Moran Publishers, and Mountain Top Publishers.

“Any increase is welcome in the capitation grant. We expect sales to rise by between 20 per cent and 25 per cent because of this,” said Lawrence Njagi, the chairman of Kenya Publishers Association.

The firms rely heavily on textbook sales to the government-funded public education sector, with a long-running culture of functional reading limiting their growth in leisure and self-help books.

Public schools account for about 60 per cent of annual book sales in the country, with private institutions and households accounting for the rest of the demand.

Publishers say the new demand will help them offset the recent drop in sales that has been attributed to a sharp increase in textbook prices due to introduction of VAT in September.

The firms estimated that their unit sales in the first term —the most important sales period —had dropped by between 13 per cent and 20 per cent as VAT raised book prices by 16 per cent.

READ: Publishers bank on exports as VAT cuts book sales

This is the first time the government has raised the capitation grants since they were introduced in 2003 when FPE was introduced to boost enrolment.

The increment announced by Education secretary Jacob Kaimenyi came after years of lobbying by publishers who argued that the static grant was eroding quality of education.

This is due to increased enrolment and inflation over the years, meaning that volume sales of learning materials have been declining despite a constant value spend by the schools.

Besides the higher grants, publishers are also gearing up for the introduction of a new curriculum from 2016, a move that will generate new demand for their titles.

The government is expected to conclude a review of the current curriculum by next year and phase in the new one from January 2016.

This means that schools will have to buy the updated learning materials that will capture new developments including the country’s changed governance structure under the new Constitution.