By Omoyeni Ojeifo
To elevate national educational standards, the Federal Government will systematically review the national curriculum every three years while establishing a strict 70 percent baseline for textbook approval.
Minister of Education Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa disclosed the policy shifts in Abuja upon receiving the official findings of Nigeria’s inaugural national textbook evaluation.
Alausa framed the initiative as a cornerstone of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, aimed at enforcing rigorous quality control in academic materials, PerSecondNews reports.
According to the Minister, the assessment forms part of the Government’s broader quality assurance drive following the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025.
He explained that the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) developed a standardised assessment toolkit, benchmarked against international best practices, to ensure that textbooks are properly aligned with the new curriculum and meet acceptable standards of quality.
“Curriculum alignment was the strongest component of the assessment, accounting for 51 per cent, while other criteria covered language and style, instructional design, technical features, social and cultural compliance, and gender sensitivity,” he noted.
Alausa stressed that the 70 per cent threshold was deliberately established to ensure that only materials demonstrating an acceptable level of quality qualify for ranking, while giving publishers whose submissions fell short an opportunity to identify their deficiencies, make the necessary corrections and resubmit.
“The assessment revealed significant variations in the quality of submitted textbooks, with some scoring as low as 25 per cent,” PerSecondNews quotes the minister as saying.
Reacting to the findings, the Minister stated that the results had exposed a situation that could no longer be ignored.
“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,” Alausa maintained.
The Minister, however, stressed that the assessment was not designed to shut publishers out of the education system, urging the Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA) and affected publishers to study the results, address identified shortcomings, align their materials with the revised curriculum and resubmit them for consideration.
“I’m giving you the olive branch,” the Minister said, while commending publishers who participated in the exercise despite what he described as “pressure and blackmail.”
Alausa explained that the national assessment would be conducted in three cycles to cover all levels of the basic and senior secondary school curriculum.
“The first cycle covers Primary 1 and 4, JSS 1 and SS 1; the second covers Primary 2 and 5, JSS 2 and SS 2; while the third covers Primary 3 and 6, JSS 3 and SS 3,” he revealed.
Reaffirming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment to raising the standard of education under the Renewed Hope Agenda, Alausa said the outcome of the exercise would serve as a quality-control mechanism.
“The mechanism would provide publishers with clear evidence of areas requiring improvement while ensuring that only materials meeting the required standard advance through the national ranking process,” he added.
He assured that the Federal Government would continue to work with publishers willing to meet the benchmark, while those already meeting it would be expected to sustain and improve their standards.
According to him, every instructional material presented to a Nigerian learner must be accurate, curriculum-aligned and fit for purpose, adding that the Government would not compromise on quality because every Nigerian child deserves a textbook worthy of the education they are being prepared to receive.
Providing further context on the exercise, the Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the assessment was undertaken in line with the Council’s statutory mandate to develop, review and promote quality educational materials for the Nigerian education system.
He explained that the exercise brought together subject specialists, education experts and NERDC personnel who worked with an approved set of criteria and scoring framework.
“The process incorporated peer review and was not dependent on the judgment of any single officer, with the results reflecting documented professional assessments and collective expert judgment,” he noted.
Prof. Shehu noted that the 70 per cent threshold was specifically adopted as the minimum standard for ranking, meaning that submissions below the benchmark would not qualify for the ranked list.
“Scores as low as 25 per cent further underscored the need for a transparent, evidence-based national mechanism for determining the quality of instructional materials across the education system.”
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