Longhorn recalls book after outcry over suicide messaging

Longhorn Publishers has recalled a Grade 2 book after public outcry over content that seemingly supported suicide.

Kenyans took to social media over the encyclopedia that had given suicide as one of the options to a question on what one should do if they felt that their sibling was favoured by their parents.

The publisher has since acknowledged the query, accepting failure on its part and promised better accountability.

“We have recalled the books from the market and corrective steps are already in place to ensure that the situation does not happen again,” said Longhorn chief executive Maxwell Wahome in a letter on Friday.

The public outcry comes amid rising rates of suicide by primary school pupils in the country, partly blamed on wrongly structured messages.

The latest notable incident of a child committing suicide was in Bomet, where a 14-year-old girl took her life after being mocked by her teacher for soiling her uniform with her period.

Experts reckon a child cognition or thought process is structured by knowledge fed to them at their early development phase.

The unhealthy content finding its way in learning material has cast the spot light on the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), the government agency mandated to approve learning material for pupils.

Mr Benard Mobutu wrote on Twitter, “KICD is just but a rubber stamp. They don't even know what contents are in those books. So sad.”

Mr Mbindinyo Kimanth wrote, “At this rate, the competence based curriculum will cost us financially and then the lives of our beloved children!”

“We take great pride in providing high quality learning, materials to our customers but in this instance we failed. For this we are extremely sorry,” read the letter from Longhorn Publishers.

Longhorn is among the seven publishers the KICD picked to supply text books Grade 4 pupils under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).