The Federal Government has introduced a 70 per cent minimum benchmark for textbooks seeking national ranking and approval for use in Nigerian schools, following the country’s first national textbook assessment exercise.
The assessment, conducted by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), revealed significant quality gaps among textbooks submitted for use in classrooms, with some materials scoring as low as 25 per cent.
Receiving the assessment report and ranked list in Abuja on Friday, Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the government would no longer tolerate poorly written, inaccurate or curriculum-incompatible textbooks in Nigerian schools.
The minister described some of the textbooks currently being used in primary and secondary schools as unacceptable.
“Some of the books being used in our schools, primary schools, junior secondary schools and senior secondary schools are trash. Some of these books are scoring 25 per cent or lower. Is this the way our children should be educated? If this happened with the government, it will not happen with this government.”
Alausa said the 70 per cent benchmark was introduced to ensure that only instructional materials that meet acceptable quality standards would be included on the national ranked list.
He stressed that the exercise was not designed to undermine the publishing industry, but to establish a transparent quality-control system that would protect Nigerian learners from textbooks capable of negatively affecting learning outcomes.
The minister urged publishers whose materials failed to meet the benchmark to review the assessment findings, address identified shortcomings and resubmit their textbooks for another assessment.
“I’m giving you the olive branch,” the Minister told publishers, while commending those who participated in the exercise despite what he described as pressure and blackmail.
The new standard comes after the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025, with the Federal Government seeking to ensure that textbooks and other instructional resources are properly aligned with the updated curriculum.
Alausa explained that NERDC had developed a standardised textbook assessment toolkit based on international best practices to determine whether instructional materials were suitable for use in Nigerian schools.
Curriculum alignment accounted for the largest portion of the assessment, representing 51 per cent of the overall score.
Other areas examined included language and style, instructional design, technical features, social and cultural compliance and gender sensitivity.
According to the minister, the assessment will give publishers clear evidence of the strengths and weaknesses of their materials instead of leaving textbook quality to subjective opinions.
He said the government’s priority was not simply to produce a ranked list but to ensure that every instructional material presented to Nigerian children was accurate, relevant, aligned with the curriculum and appropriate for classroom use.
“Every instructional material presented to a Nigerian learner must be accurate, curriculum-aligned and fit for purpose,” he stressed, adding that the government would not compromise on education quality.
The textbook assessment will be carried out in three cycles covering the basic and senior secondary school curriculum.
The first cycle covers Primary 1 and 4, JSS 1 and SS 1. The second cycle will assess Primary 2 and 5, JSS 2 and SS 2, while the third cycle will cover Primary 3 and 6, JSS 3 and SS 3.
Also speaking, NERDC Executive Secretary, Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the assessment was conducted in accordance with the council’s statutory responsibility to develop, review and promote quality educational materials in Nigeria.
Shehu said subject specialists, education experts and NERDC officials participated in the exercise using approved assessment criteria and a defined scoring framework.
He added that peer review was also incorporated into the process to ensure that the results were not based on the opinion of a single official.
According to him, the results represented documented professional assessments and collective expert judgment.
Shehu said the emergence of scores as low as 25 per cent further demonstrated the need for a credible national system for assessing textbooks before they are introduced into Nigerian classrooms.
Meanwhile, Alausa announced that the national curriculum would henceforth be reviewed every three years to ensure that it remains relevant to emerging technological, educational and societal developments.
The minister said combining regular curriculum reviews with stricter textbook assessment would create a stronger quality-assurance system across Nigeria’s education sector.
He assured publishers that materials meeting the 70 per cent benchmark would be expected to maintain and improve their standards, while publishers whose books fall below the threshold would have the opportunity to correct identified weaknesses and submit them for reassessment.
Alausa said the initiative was part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda for education, stressing that the ultimate beneficiary of the stricter standards should be the Nigerian child.
Source: Federal Ministry of Education
