BEVERLY HILLS, September 30, (THEWILL) – The federal government has reacted to the continued criticism of previous governments’ suspension of the teaching of History as a subject in schools nationwide by reinstating the subject across basic schools in the country, noting that the reintroduction of the subject would give Nigerian children a self-identity of who they really are.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, who called for the disarticulation of Social Studies in the current curriculum of basic schools and reintroduction of History as a subject, explained that this had become imperative given the critical nature of History to the nation’s socio-political development.
He made this disclosure on Thursday while addressing delegates at the 61st meeting of the National Council on Education Ministerial Session, where he called on the council to consider making the study of Christian Religious Knowledge, CRK, and Islamic Religious Knowledge, IRK, compulsory for Christians and Muslims to the end of Senior Secondary School.
Noting that leaders in the education sector committed “a mistake” by removing History from the curriculum, he asked, “How can we know who we are when we do not know who we are not?
“How can we know what to make of our society when we don’t know how our society is made up?
“How can we hope to make sense of the world when we don’t know our place in it?”
Adamu went on to state that Nigeria owes present and future generations the responsibility of removing all inhibitions against opportunities of acquiring morals and ethics as taught in religious traditions.
According to him, “It is only the study of history, our own history, that can explain and give meaning to our very humanity and that is why we must study it and teach our little ones. And it is also not enough that they merely know who they are; we must teach them about their God.
“Since it is said that if you want to destroy any nation, it is said that first the family must be destroyed, then education is destroyed, and the third are social morals that are destroyed, so in Nigeria we owe both present and future generations the responsibility of removing all inhibitions against making our children acquire morals and ethics,” the minister said.
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