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Author: Moses Ngware, Senior Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research Center
Original article: https://theconversation.com/kenyas-decision-to-make-maths-optional-in-high-school-is-a-bad-idea-what-should-happen-instead-252965
Kenya’s education ministry announced in March 2025 that mathematics would be an optional subject in senior secondary school, which begins in grade 10. Most students in this grade are aged 15 years. The education minister said the mathematics taught from grade 4 to grade 9 was sufficient for foundational “numeracy literacy”.
The change, in January 2026, is part of a shift to a new education system styled as the competence based curriculum. The decision is not to scrap maths altogether but rather to make it optional. However, given the poor performance in this subject, it is expected there will be few takers.
Maths is a compulsory subject in the first 12 years of basic education in many African countries. This is the case in Mauritius, Nigeria and South Africa, which opted for a choice between maths and mathematical literacy for grades 10-12.
The older education system, known as 8-4-4, featured eight years of primary school and four each at high school and university. Under this, core maths, dubbed Alternative A, is compulsory for all schoolgoing children until the second year of high school (form 2). Most students in this grade are aged 16 years. In the final two years of high school, one has the option of switching to Alternative B, a simplified version of Alternative A introduced in 2009. Alternative B is similar to South Africa’s mathematical literacy subject.
The decision has triggered heated debates in the country, in favour and against.
As a researcher who has taught high school maths and researched maths teaching for over 20 years, I have the view that making maths optional is not a good idea. This is because both individuals and society need maths, regardless of the career path they might choose.
It’s been argued that the change applies to the last two senior years of high school, which was the case in the old system too. For the new curriculum, however, this should not have been a problem as it is competence-based. This implies that what matters is the specific skills and knowledge mastered by a student, and not the examination scores.
The Kenyan education department should establish the root causes of the low performance in maths, and fix them. Research shows that chief among these are resource allocation; weak teacher preparation and support for foundational numeracy instruction; a learning disability known as dyscalculia; and the behavioural performance of maths teachers.
Kenya’s maths problem
In the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams, graded between A (highest) and E (lowest), over half of the 881,416 candidates’ maths scores fell in the lowest two grades, D and E. This improved only marginally in 2023. To put the performance in context, the pass rate in high school certificate maths examinations in Mauritius improved from 81.4% to 91.8% between 2019 and 2022.
There are a number of reasons for this dismal performance in Kenya:
Resource allocation: The better-resourced national schools can only admit a small number of students, leaving out over 70% who join low-resourced day schools. Resources for learning maths range from teachers to interactive teaching and learning materials inside the classroom. With the support of partners such as the Global Partnership for Education, the government aims to achieve a 1:1 textbook-per-student ratio goal. However, the flow of capitation grants to secondary schools has been wanting, jeopardising access to resources at the school level.
Teacher preparation: Teachers aren’t well prepared to support learners in foundational numeracy (maths in early grades). Foundational numeracy skills are critical in creating strong building blocks for future learning and success in later grades.
Teacher behaviour: Classroom observation studies reveal that maths teachers favour boys. Furthermore, above average learners sit in the front closer to the chalkboard, and learners are denied positive reinforcement that would motivate them to learn maths. There are also negative attitudes about maths as a difficult subject, reinforcing the stereotype that it is only suitable for boys and “bright” children.
Dyscalculia: Worldwide, 3%-7% of the general population are affected by a disability known as dyscalculia. In Kenya, 6.4% among primary and secondary school children have the disability. It is a condition that affects a person’s ability to understand numerical concepts. By implication, the number of the 962,512 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education candidates of 2024 with this disability works out to between 28,000 and 68,000 candidates. But Kenya’s education system doesn’t support teachers in diagnosing learners with dyscalculia, or managing their disability.
Policy options
There are alternatives to making maths an optional subject in senior secondary school.
The system needs to focus on the root causes of low performance, and then on how to fix them.
I suggest the following solutions.
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Avoid unnecessarily using achievement in maths to determine access to academic and training programmes. This way, one’s career will not solely be determined by performance in maths.
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Keep a simpler maths alternative, or maths literacy, for senior secondary instead of making maths optional.
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Teachers should continue to develop their competence in maths, focusing on content knowledge as well as knowledge of how to teach numeracy.
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The general public should communicate effectively to eliminate negative stereotypes and unhelpful attitudes in society. The aim is to shift mindsets so that maths is perceived as part of life – making it necessary to support all children to succeed in maths.
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Help learners to overcome dyscalculia, using multisensory teaching approaches – a way of teaching that engages more than one sense at a time: sight, hearing, movement and touch.