By Adeola Kunle
The Federal Government has raised the bar for the quality of textbooks used in Nigerian schools, with the Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, announcing a minimum score of 70 per cent for textbooks to qualify for the national ranking exercise.
Dr. Alausa announced the benchmark in Abuja while receiving the report and ranked list from Nigeria’s first national textbook assessment and ranking exercise. He said the initiative represents another major step in the Federal Government’s efforts, under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, to improve standards and strengthen quality assurance throughout the education sector.
The Minister said the assessment is part of the Government’s wider quality assurance measures introduced following the implementation of the revised national curriculum in September 2025.
He explained that the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) developed a standardised assessment toolkit based on international best practices to determine whether textbooks adequately reflect the revised curriculum and meet acceptable educational standards.
According to him, curriculum alignment carried the highest weight in the assessment, accounting for 51 per cent of the total score. Other areas assessed included language and style, instructional design, technical features, social and cultural compliance, as well as gender sensitivity.
Dr. Alausa explained that the 70 per cent benchmark was intentionally established to ensure that only textbooks that demonstrate an acceptable level of quality are included in the national ranking.
He, however, clarified that publishers whose books did not meet the benchmark had not been permanently excluded. Rather, the exercise provides them with an opportunity to understand the weaknesses identified in their submissions, make the required corrections and submit the improved materials for another assessment.
The exercise also exposed wide differences in the quality of textbooks submitted for assessment, with some materials recording scores as low as 25 per cent.
Reacting to the findings, the Minister said the results revealed serious shortcomings in some instructional materials currently available to Nigerian learners.
“Some of the books being used in our schools, primary schools, junior secondary schools and senior secondary schools are trash. Some of these books are scoring 25% or lower. Is this the way our children should be educated? If this happened with the government, it will not happen with this government,” he said.
Despite the strong criticism, Dr. Alausa extended an opportunity to publishers to improve their materials and meet the new standard.
“I’m giving you the olive branch,” the Minister said, while commending publishers who took part in the assessment despite what he described as “pressure and blackmail.”
He specifically urged the Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA) and publishers whose submissions failed to meet the benchmark to carefully examine the assessment results, correct the identified deficiencies, ensure full alignment with the revised curriculum and resubmit their textbooks for consideration.
Dr. Alausa further disclosed that the national textbook assessment would be implemented in three cycles to cover the various levels of the basic and senior secondary school curriculum.
The first cycle covers Primary 1 and Primary 4, JSS 1 and SS 1. The second cycle will assess Primary 2 and Primary 5, JSS 2 and SS 2, while the third cycle will cover Primary 3 and Primary 6, JSS 3 and SS 3.
He also announced that the national curriculum would henceforth undergo review every three years to keep it relevant to emerging developments in education, technology and society.
Giving further insight into the assessment process, the Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the exercise was carried out in accordance with the Council’s statutory responsibility to develop, review and promote quality educational materials for Nigeria’s education system.
Prof. Shehu explained that the assessment involved subject specialists, education experts and NERDC officials who applied an approved set of assessment criteria and scoring frameworks.
He said the process included peer review and was deliberately structured so that the outcome would not depend on the opinion of a single official. Instead, the results were based on documented professional assessments and the collective judgment of experts involved in the exercise.
The NERDC Executive Secretary reiterated that 70 per cent had been adopted as the minimum score for inclusion in the national ranking, meaning textbooks that fall below the threshold would not make the ranked list.
He said the discovery of materials scoring as low as 25 per cent further demonstrated the importance of establishing a transparent, professional and evidence-based national system for assessing the quality of instructional materials.
Reaffirming the Tinubu administration’s commitment to improving the quality of education through the Renewed Hope Agenda, Dr. Alausa said the textbook ranking exercise would provide an important quality-control mechanism for the education system.
He said the results would give publishers clear information about areas where their materials require improvement, while ensuring that textbooks that proceed through the national ranking process meet the required standards.
The Minister assured publishers that the Federal Government would continue to engage with those willing to improve their materials and meet the 70 per cent benchmark. Publishers whose books already satisfy the standard, he added, would also be expected to maintain and continuously improve their quality.
Dr. Alausa emphasised that the exercise was not simply about producing a ranking of textbooks but about safeguarding the quality of learning received by Nigerian children.
He maintained that every instructional material placed before a Nigerian learner must be accurate, properly aligned with the approved curriculum and suitable for its intended educational purpose.
The Minister said the Federal Government would not compromise on the quality of educational materials, stressing that every Nigerian child deserves access to textbooks that are worthy of the education and future they are being prepared for.
Adeola Kunle
No comments:
Post a Comment