The federal government on Thursday formally announced the reintroduction of history in Nigeria’s basic education curriculum 13 years after its abolition.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister of education, Malam Adamu Adamu, made the announcement at the inauguration ceremony of the reintroduction of the teaching of history in schools on Thursday in Abuja.
The minister, who was represented by the minister of state for education, Rt. Hon. Goodluck Nanah Opiah said the abolition of history from the education curriculum in 2019 was a ‘monumental mistake’ which has eroded the ‘knowledge of the evolution of Nigeria as a country’.
“History used to be one of the foundational subjects taught in our classroom but for some inexplicable reasons, the stream of teaching and learning was abolished,” he said.
“As a result, history was subsequently expunged from the list of subject combinations our students could offer in both external and internal examinations compared to the subjects that were made compulsory at basic and secondary levels in Nigeria.
“This single act no doubt relegated and eroded the knowledge and information that learners could otherwise have been exposed to. It was a monumental mistake and have already started seeing its negative consequences.
“The loss created by the absence of this subject has led to a fall in moral values, erosion of civic values, and disconnect from the past. More worrisome was the neglect of the teaching of this subject at basic and post-basic levels of education which invariably eroded the knowledge of the evolution of Nigeria as a country.”
The minister added that the focus of the re-introduction was the training and retraining of teachers to enhance their capacity development which would lead to the mastery of the subject.
Speaking, the executive secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, said a total of 3,700 history teachers have been selected, pro rata, from the 36 states of the federation and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for the training: 100 teachers from each state and the FCT.
He added that the training would equip the teachers with the requisite skills needed to teach the subject, especially with the modification of the subject content.
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