The Federal Government has restored History to Nigeria’s basic education curriculum, drawing a clear line under a policy misstep that officials say severed young Nigerians from their national roots.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during an interview on Arise News, stressing that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu considered the earlier removal of History both ill-advised and damaging.
History was formally dropped from the primary and junior secondary school curriculum in 2007, a decision justified at the time on administrative and structural grounds. Nearly two decades later, the Federal Government has moved decisively to reverse it.
According to Alausa, the President directed an immediate review of the curriculum upon assuming office, leading to the reinstatement of Nigerian History as a standalone subject.
“Nigerian history is back in the curriculum. We did not ban it, but we felt it was wrong, and we moved swiftly to bring Nigerian history back,” the minister said.
He expressed disbelief that such a foundational subject was ever removed, noting that the consequence has been a generation of pupils increasingly disconnected from the country’s past.
“History wasn’t banned by this government. It was banned about 12 to 13 years ago, and you look at it now, our kids are so delinked with the history of the country. I don’t know who in their right mind banned history, and that’s why this President mandated us to do a pure curriculum review,” he added.
Beyond curriculum reform, the minister announced a clampdown on what he described as exploitative practices in some schools, particularly the conduct of graduation ceremonies for nursery pupils and the compulsory sale of textbooks to parents.
Alausa described nursery school graduations as “sheer extortion,” arguing that such ceremonies impose unnecessary financial pressure on families without offering meaningful educational value.
“And now let me talk about the nursery school graduation. It might be fun for you, but sheer extortion of parents, it’s not acceptable,” he said.
Questioning the logic behind repeated graduations at early learning stages, the minister said the government prefers clear and meaningful academic milestones.
“When you finish primary school, do your graduation; when you finish GSS, do your graduation; SSS, do your graduation. We give them something that leads to milestones, something that is more cogent, more tangible, not the way everything is being turned into extorting the parent,” he stated.
The minister also criticised the publishing and textbook procurement practices in some schools, which he said had been deliberately structured to force parents into buying new books every academic year.
Recalling how textbooks were traditionally reused within families, Alausa lamented the introduction of workbooks fused with core textbooks, rendering them unusable for younger siblings.
“They manipulated the entire process. You put the workbook as part of the textbook, so the student will now write on those books and they become useless. And next year, you tell the parents to buy another book,” he said.
He further alleged that in many cases, publishers made no meaningful changes to textbook content, altering only pagination or cover designs before insisting on new purchases.
To curb this practice, the minister said the government has mandated a strict separation of workbooks from core textbooks, warning that parents would no longer be subjected to what he termed systemic exploitation.
