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Opinion

If senior-school maths becomes optional, the weekday still has to teach it well

The March 2025 essay argued that making mathematics optional in senior school could be a relief — if the years before that door still taught maths as a tool, not a filter. Optionality without that weekday is a checkbox that girls and under-resourced schools will pay for.

Opinion, rewritten from the mykurasa.com essay for this site in September 2026. It is not a Ministry circular and not a 60 Decibels finding. Pathway rules move — date any policy sentence.

This page is Kurasa’s opinion from a March 2025 essay, rewritten September 2026. It is not a Ministry of Education circular and not a KICD document. Confirm the current senior-school subject rules before you advise a family.

Portrait of an adult Kenyan woman teacher in an empty classroom with a chalkboard of working.
Portrait of an adult Kenyan woman teacher in an empty classroom with a chalkboard of working.

What the opinion actually said

Keep a maths-for-life strand so no pathway graduates unable to read a bill or a graph. Keep a heavier strand for STEM. Do not treat “drop maths” as a dare. The original cited long-running national pass-rate ranges. Those figures stay on that year’s essay — this rewrite will not restyle them as a Kurasa study, and will not invent a 2026 cut-score.

Who loses if we are careless

Learners who already hear that maths is not for them — often girls, often schools without a specialist. Esther Diera’s fireside is the classroom version of that sentence. Pathway placement is a different page. Confirm the circular before anyone treats this opinion as the rule.

What PSL is, and is not

Daily Challenge is five questions after supper. PSL Summative is a programme sitting. Neither is a ministry policy and neither “saves the education system.” They are practice and a public paper for schools that choose them. The weekday in Workspace is still the year.

Over-shoulder of a learner working a written problem while a teacher watches.
Over-shoulder of a learner working a written problem while a teacher watches.
Over-shoulder on a written problem. Maths that has to live, whether or not a pathway later makes it optional.

Practice, not a circular

Teach the year. Then read the rule that actually sits.

Pathways for the doors. Esther for the classroom. Daily Challenge for the habit after supper.