WorldStage— In order to bridge the quality gap for educational and instructional materials in Nigeria, the Federal Government has introduced a 70 per cent minimum benchmark for textbooks to qualify for national ranking.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, announced the strict policy framework in Abuja after receiving the official report of the nation’s inaugural textbook assessment and ranking exercise.
The assessment, conducted by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), exposed shocking quality gaps, with some submitted school books scoring as low as 25 per cent.
In a blunt reaction to the findings, Alausa condemned the poor state of materials available to pupils and students across primary and secondary schools, labeling poorly evaluated books as trash that the current administration will no longer tolerate.
He made it explicitly clear that any textbook scoring below the newly established 70 per cent standard will be completely excluded from the national ranked list and barred from classroom recommendations.
“Is this the way our children should be educated? If this happened in the past, it will not happen with this government,” Alausa stated, emphasizing that curriculum alignment factored heaviest in the assessment tool, carrying a 51 per cent weighting.
Other critical metrics measured by the NERDC evaluation included instructional design, language style, and socio-cultural compliance.
The minister explained that the newly approved National Textbook Ranking System (NTRS) is a key pillar of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda for the education sector.
The overarching goal is to standardize learning, eliminate arbitrary textbook revisions, and shield parents from the exploitation of paying for subpar books.
To keep pace with rapid societal shifts, Alausa also revealed that the national school curriculum will now undergo a regular review every three years.
However, the Ministry extended an olive branch to the Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA) and affected stakeholders.
Alausa assured that publishers whose instructional materials fell below the 70 per cent mark will be allowed to study their assessment diagnostics, correct identified shortfalls, and resubmit their books for a future reassessment cycle, adding that publishers who cleared the benchmark are expected to sustain or improve their metrics.
The Ministry of Education maintained that the government will not compromise on educational resources, reaffirming that every Nigerian child deserves high-quality, fit-for-purpose materials to back their learning journeys.
