Online book exchange eases burden on parents

It is said that the best inheritance a parent can give to children is education and many middle income families strive to enrol their children in the best performing schools.

Over the years much of the expense that they have to endure is on purchase of textbooks and other supplementary reading material, especially for those about to sit their national examinations.

With the introduction of the 16 per cent value added tax on learning materials, textbook prices have increased.

The cost of books were further driven higher following the government’s move to allow publishers a 14 per cent increase in the prices to shield them from higher operational costs.

Even parents with children in public schools that enjoy government subsidy under the free primary education programme, have now had to shoulder the extra burden just to meet their children’s educational needs.

However, Steve Nguru, 45, has created an online and mobile application, SwapKitabu to help parents who find it difficult to buy the books.

Driven by the passion to raise the quality of education by bridging the gap of inadequate textbooks among learners, he has found a way in which communities can exchange textbooks instead of buying new ones.

“My startup was inspired in January last year by my teenage daughter when she asked me to buy her five revision books she required for her Standard Eight class whose total cost amounted to Sh2,590. I happened to be broke at that time and was trying to find ways to get the books because she was going to sit her KCPE exam at the end of the year,” he said.

But before he could get the money to buy the books, his daughter came home with them one evening from school.

“Naturally, I inquired where she got them from and she explained that the previous candidates had abandoned the textbooks when they finished their final exams and so her teachers distributed these books to the new Class 8,” he explained.

This drove him to relate to parents who might have been in similar situations as he was with his daughter and began studying the problem of inadequate school books within the education system.

He found out that an average of three pupils share a single textbook in most primary schools yet there were some, especially secondary school students who burn their textbooks and other learning materials after completing their Form Four examinations.

“That is when I realised that such wastage can be turned around by way of a hand-me-down model. A tradition that most parents know so well and had to live with, especially when it came to clothes and one would get those that could no longer fit their older siblings,” said Mr Nguru.

His research also turned up with an interesting fact — that some parents and learners do swap textbooks, though to a limited degree which led him to think of ways to upscale this in order to ensure that there is a textbook in every child’s hand despite the high costs.

At the moment he is registering his social enterprise, SwapKitabu Limited, and seeks to partner with organisations in the education sector.

The platform operates on a simple model that when a pupil is promoted to the next class they can sell textbooks one no longer needs to another who needs them, and use the money to buy learning materials for their new class.

If they do not wish to sell, they can even donate the books to SwapKitabu enabling even more students use the book in its lifetime.

A customer registers on the company’s website and makes an order of the book(s) of one’s choice to either buy, sell or donate. They are then linked to a client who wishes to buy, sell to or exchange the book(s) with them.

“We have started with a special yearly subscription of just Sh200 for one to use our facility to swap textbooks. This is just about Sh16.50 per month and there are no additional fee other than for the donated books for which we charge the lucky beneficiary a Sh20 commission for handling,” he said.

The enterprise, which started operations in November is looking to develop its business model into a sustainable and scalable one beyond the NaiLab accelerator and incubator programme where it was conceived.

The father of two admits that the journey has not been easy and he has had to “stretch his time quite thinly” amongst his various engagements to build his startup and ensure that every action achieves the greatest impact towards that growth.

SwapKitabu currently runs a pilot and has had very positive responses from parents within Nairobi whom they have had the opportunity to interact with through annual general meetings in schools with several signing up.

“What has come out clearly is that parents had wished for something like SwapKitabu because most of them have books lying at their homes that they do not know what to do with. The schools are also excited to support the concept because they look forward to their learners being able to access more textbooks,” he said.

The trained computer and power systems design and support professional, who provides ICT consultancy services to individuals and micro and SMEs is hopeful that his two children, the eldest who inspired the startup and the youngest still in primary school would continue to be beneficiaries of the platform.

He expressed optimism that by the end of the year the online platform would be the place to go for every type of book, especially high-value books used in higher education and post-graduate studies.