Concerned about the state of Nigerian education, stakeholders
in the sector have called for a review of the primary and secondary
school curriculum to address what they see as challenges being faced by
students and teachers alike. Their suggestion, if approved by
government, will consign the curriculum currently in use to the dustbin
of history. In this report, Kuni Tyessi x-rays the revised curriculum
and its possible impact on the performance of students.
As a captain depends on a compass to find his way in a large body of
water, so does a teacher rely on the curriculum to plan and guide him in
the teaching methodology adopted to get the best out of the pupils and
students entrusted in his care.
The primary and secondary school curriculum have come under several
attacks in recent times with some people saying it is unnecessarily too
bulky for the primary and secondary school students and others
attributing the poor performance in examinations by pupils and students
to the poor teaching skills due to inadequate training of teachers.
Last week, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Centre
(NERDC), a parastatal under the federal ministry of education which is
in charge of curriculum review, concluded the project of reviewing the
basic education curriculum and presented it to members of the Nigerian
public.
The executive secretary, Prof. Godswill Obioma had said the “review
of that curriculum was occasioned by the quest of the end user that the
curriculum is over loaded in terms of subject matter and there is a need
to reduce the subject over load without losing quality and also to
incorporate if there are any emerging issues.”
He contended that Nigerians were not reading and this culture was
affecting the pupils and students “because without reading, there is no
information.”
The curricula overload was also an issue at the presidential summit
on the restoration, reclamation, and sustenance of the quality of
education in Nigeria held in October, 2010. Consequently, based on the
white paper on the report of the presidential task team on education,
NERDC was directed to further revise the 9-year BEC in terms of reducing
the subject over load without compromising quality. Specifically, the
number of subjects was to be reduced to between 6 and 13 in line with
global best practices as well as taking account of local needs.
The revised BEC approved by the National Council on Education in 2013
comprised five subjects which include English Language, Mathematics,
Cultural and Creative Arts, one Nigerian language and Basic Science and
Technology. Pre-vocational studies which are to be introduced in primary
four are Home Economics and Agriculture while religious and national
values include Christian Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Social
Studies, Civic Education, and Security Education. French will be
introduced in primary four, Arabic remains optional while Business
Studies and Entrepreneurship is to be introduced in JSS1.
The implementation of the revised BEC has been approved by NCE to
commence in September 2014 beginning from primary one and JSS one and
will gradually phase out the old BEC with the hope that since the
curriculum represents the total experiences to which all learners must
be exposed, the contents, performance objectives, activities for both
teachers and learners, teaching and learning resources and evaluation
guides are prescribed as components in the overall logical frame.
During the presentation, it was revealed that in 2004, Nigeria
adopted a home grown economic blue print, the national economic and
development strategy in response to the global reforms. The focal points
included value re-orientation, poverty eradication, wealth creation and
employment generation.
The NERDC boss said the BEC was implemented nationwide in 2008
systematically beginning from primary one and junior secondary
concurrently. It comprised 20 subjects which included such new subjects
as Basic Science, Basic Technology, and Computer Science/IT.
Emerging issues such as family life, HIV/AIDS education, drug
education, national values, road safety education etc were incorporated
into relevant career subject matter of which out of the 20 subjects,
learners offered a maximum of 15 subjects in the junior secondary
school.
The teachers’ guides which are expected not to be compromised are
said to enhance the effective delivery as well as eliminate ambiguities
in the teaching of the curriculum. This is said to be an improvement
compared to past efforts where teachers’ guides were not developed and
this is to be supported with the training of teachers on how to use the
guide and this is to commence across the country in different designated
venues in Benin, Enugu, Lagos, Makurdi, and Minna.
The laudable feat could have been marred by unfavourable release of
funds. Obioma revealed that “of the N270million proposed in the 2014
budget and admitted by our parent ministry and the office of the senior
special adviser to Mr. President on MDGs to complete the distribution of
the outstanding primary 4-6, only N30 million was approved by the
National Assembly. It will be worthy of note that this unfortunate
development if left uncorrected will certainly derail the implementation
of the revised BEC as approved by the NCE and thus affect the
attainment of the transformation agenda in this context.”
After all said and done, it is believed that the new curriculum,
after surviving all the hurdles, will go a long way to improve the
understanding of pupils and students, thereby empowering them with the
ability to perform credibly
http://leadership.ng/news/education/380993/another-curriculum-review-impact
No comments:
Post a Comment