The last Administration got a complaint on the extremely poor academic performance of Nigerian student in their national exams. It was insinuated that this could be due to the many subjects a student has to offer each term.

In order to address this issue, a couple of subjects were merged as one, while others were taken off the curriculum completely. Like every work in progress, some inadequacies have been noticed in the new subjects which are currently being addressed.

However, some concerns have been raised about some recommended/approved textbooks used in our schools today. These concerns range from error in content to error in presentation – tenses, spellings etc.

In addition, there appears to be a deliberate effort to twist the minds of student with the introduction of sexually perverse contents into these textbooks in the guise of sex education and Literature.

Below is an excerpt from a textbook written by S. Omotuloye - Religion and National Values, Social Studies for UBE 7, page 50

As you can see, apart from the moral distortion, there appears to be an error in spelling ‘inmate’ instead of ‘intimate’

You may have come across the letter written by the PTA of Crescent Schools in Lagos State, stating the perversions contained in the precious child written by Queen O. Okweshine and the tears of a bride by Oyekunle Oyedeji. These are recommended literature textbooks for Junior Secondary Schools.  These books contain vivid description of sexual foreplay are expected to be read by children between the ages of 10 and 12. 

Below are excerpts from the book, "the tears of a bride".

While the above are issues concerning the moral fabrics of the society, to be candid I simply do not understand this one

The function of the head is to carry load?!!!

Writing a book goes through stages of writing, proof reading and editing before getting published. Textbooks go through approval process and stages before being recommended to schools for use.  

On inquiry, it was discovered that there’s usually a book review committee drawn from school teachers, proprietors, ministry staff etc. to review the books. The curriculum development department of State’ Ministry of Education is responsible for approving textbooks. They set up this committee to evaluate these textbooks and check if they are in line with the curriculum, written in good language, suitable for use as a textbook… i.e it must have an assessment section.

So what went wrong? Is it possible that these textbooks passed through the committee and no concerns were raised? Does each school have a committee that read, approve or disapprove recommended textbooks? Do parents check these books when the kids bring them home? Are these books really approved to be used in our schools? There are places where mediocrity should never be entertained… EDUCATION is one.

There should be no excuses for such negligence in our Education system; the Curriculum department of the States Ministry of Education and the Committees responsible for reviewing these books need to WAKE UP! and do their job.