New School Curriculum: Senate Calls for Calm
Adetokunbo Fakeye
Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki on Wednesday, urged all stakeholders in the education sector to remain calm on the new 9-year Basic Education Curriculum to enable the National Assembly look into the various issues involved.
Saraki, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Mohammed Isa, made the call while receiving a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), who paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
He assured the delegation that the Senate Committee on Basic Education would investigate the complaints by the Association against the new curriculum with a view to making it acceptable and satisfactory to all religions.
Explaining the background to the introduction of the policy, the Senate President said the process began in 2010, when the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan came up with a series of reforms to reduce the number of subjects in the school curriculum.
“As leaders, we must continue to seek and find solutions to problems. You will remember that in 2010, the past administration came up with reforms on how to reduce the number of subjects at the basic education level.
“There were about 20 subjects at that time, and subsequently they were reduced to 12. In the process of implementing that reforms, we have this problem. Why I am saying this, is so we don’t leave here and believe that it was done to favour one religion over the other.
“Now the reform is clearly not working. So our responsibility is to look into that reform and make it work. I am sure that there was no intention to make one group feel disadvantaged with this new school curriculum. This is why this Senate will direct our Committee on education to look at the reform and find out why it is not working with the relevant stakeholders,” he said.
Earlier in his speech, the leader of the delegation, Prof. Charles Adeyinka Adisa, who represented the CAN National President, called for the intervention of the National Assembly to ensure genuine respect for the Constitution, as well as, “abolition of obnoxious laws that infringe on freedom of worship.”