23/04/2026
At first glance, the Ministry’s new system of selecting Form 1 textbooks and placing them online may appear to be forward movement—modern, efficient, and progressive. It sounds like accessibility; advancement and educational reform, but when we look deeper, is our government pioneering a system that may have far-reaching effects?
This is not simply about putting books online. Who chooses these books? By what standard? Who benefits? Who gets excluded?
These decisions affect far more than students receiving material for school. They affect authors who have dedicated years to writing and developing educational content. They affect local academics whose research and expertise shape curriculum. They affect publishers who invest heavily into educational development. They affect booksellers and bookstores whose businesses often depend on textbook distribution. They affect teachers who must work with the selected resources, and parents who are expected to trust that these choices are truly in the best interest of their children.
If the criteria for textbook selection are unclear, inconsistent, or influenced by preference rather than transparent academic standards, it creates the appearance of bias and unfair practice. Education should never feel like a closed gate where only a select few have access and opportunity.
And the greater danger is this—what happens when academics stop writing and producing within our own country? We begin relying on imported systems, imported philosophies, and imported educational thinking that may not reflect our students, our culture, our language, or our national realities.
Textbooks are not just books. They carry worldview, identity, history, and intellectual independence.
When local academics are discouraged, we do not just lose writers—we lose national voice. We lose innovation. We lose context. We lose the ability to shape education from within.
A country that stops producing its own educational thought eventually loses the power to think for itself.
So yes, this may have the appearance of forward movement, but policy must be measured not only by convenience, but by consequence.
Because when academics stop writing, a nation slowly stops thinking for herself.
