Not too long ago, controversy trailed the scrapping of History from the Academic Curriculum for Schools across Nigeria. The reason for this was that History is supposedly less important; incapable of contributing to National Growth. But this perspective as was expressed by the “Lawmakers” who called for the scrapping of the subject is nothing but erroneous! Unknown them, no country can make meaningful progress without keeping track of its past as way of ensuring that previous mistakes are not repeated even as precedents are replicated.
In any case, we are very glad that History will be taught in our classrooms again. We work up to the good news this morning that come 2017, Nigerian Students will finally be taught “History”. Daily Trust authoritatively reports that Prof. Ismail Junaidu who is the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research Development Council (NERDC), has disclosed (on Monday) that “History” subject will be reintroduced in the Nigerian primary and secondary school curriculums from September 2017.
According to the report, Professor Junaidu said the following:
“Hopefully by next academic session, all things being equal, we should start implementing the policy. This is what the country is yearning for. The National Assembly is hundred per cent behind us, so also the Federal Ministry of Education. By next Council on Education meeting, we should be able to table the curriculum itself, and if we have the curriculum, we will start the distribution to the schools. We are hoping by the next academic session we should start implementing the policy…What we are advocating is, after the first nine years of education, a Nigerian child should have some good knowledge of Nigerian history.”
We couldn’t be happier than we are for this news. History is such an important subject which every student needs to study. It is important to study History because it will enable Nigerian students be gain meaningful knowledge about Nigeria’s past and be better equipped for either avoiding some mistakes that were made before or repeating some of the things that were done right. Studying the history of Nigeria will also let teenagers fully understand how the entity called Nigeria came to be. Indeed, by teaching students about the causes of events that have taken place in country, they can be better equipped (as the future leaders they are) towards making better decisions and averting conflicts.
Across the world, History is taught from Elementary School due to its huge importance. For no reason should the Nigerian case be different. Indeed, we cannot wait for 2017 when every student will get the chance to be taught about Nigeria’s, Africa’s and the World’s interesting pasts.
