Alausa sets 70 per cent benchmark for textbooks, says publishers must meet quality standards
By Uji A Iliyasu, Abuja
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has set a 70 per cent minimum benchmark for textbooks to qualify for national ranking, warning publishers that substandard books will no longer be allowed in Nigerian classrooms.
Alausa, who spoke in Abuja on Thursday, said the decision followed the country’s first national textbook assessment and ranking exercise conducted by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council.
The exercise, the minister said, exposed serious quality gaps, with some textbooks scoring as low as 25 per cent.
“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?” he said.
Alausa said the 70 per cent benchmark was designed to ensure that only textbooks meeting acceptable quality standards qualify for ranking.
He, however, urged publishers whose books failed to meet the benchmark to correct the identified deficiencies and resubmit them.
“I’m giving you the olive branch,” the minister told publishers, while urging the Nigerian Publishers Association and affected publishers to work with the government to improve the quality of instructional materials.
The assessment followed the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025. NERDC developed a standardised assessment toolkit based on international best practices to assess textbooks against the new curriculum.
Curriculum alignment accounted for 51 per cent of the assessment, while other criteria included language and style, instructional design, technical quality, social and cultural compliance, and gender sensitivity.
Alausa said the assessment would be conducted in three cycles covering all levels of the basic and senior secondary school curriculum.
The first cycle covers Primary 1 and 4, JSS 1 and SS 1; the second, Primary 2 and 5, JSS 2 and SS 2; and the third, Primary 3 and 6, JSS 3 and SS 3.
He also announced that the national curriculum would be reviewed every three years to keep it responsive to emerging educational, technological and societal developments.
The Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof Salisu Shehu, said the assessment involved subject specialists, education experts and council officials who worked with approved criteria and a standard scoring framework.
Shehu said peer review was incorporated to ensure that the ranking reflected collective professional judgment rather than the decision of a single official.
Alausa said the government’s objective was not simply to rank textbooks but to protect the quality of learning, insisting that every instructional material used by Nigerian children must be accurate, curriculum-aligned and fit for purpose.
He said the exercise was part of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to strengthen quality assurance across the education sector.