Dear Sir,
I am writing you this letter hoping it will provoke an urgent reaction from you thereby saving our education system from further decay. A situation brought about by poor policy decisions that have lowered the quality of pedagogy and created chaos and inconsistencies in the national curricula at all levels. The purpose of my letter to you is to lament the unceremonious manner history as a subject was expunged from the school curriculum at all levels. I am sure as the education minister you are aware that the subject is no longer offered in our schools today.
I read somewhere that you had also decried the situation where young Nigerians were denied the privilege of studying History especially in public schools. In the report, you had promised to return the subject to the public school curriculum. The purpose of this letter therefore is to heighten the need to strengthen our education system and enrich the quality of learning by bringing back the teaching and learning of history to our schools. My hope is that your concern about how history was unceremoniously expunged from the curriculum is not just one of the lamentations of public officials who will eventually renege on their pronouncements. You stand at the threshold of history to make this happen.
The return of history to the school curriculum is one decision that requires your immediate action. Before you wonder the pedigree of the person writing you this letter, let me add that apart from being a Nigerian concerned about the poor state of public education in our country, I am also an educator working in the country’s school system. As an educator, I am daily confronted with the consequences of the removal of history from the school curriculum. Today, we have a generation of students who have no idea about our contemporary history. In our schools, we are presently producing students who will leave school without any knowledge of Nigeria’s history -both past and present.
But we all know the importance of history in our life as a people and why it must be a mandatory course of study and subject in our schools. The need to make the learning of history compulsory has never been a more urgent need in our nation than now. Recently, I engaged a group of students in an informal discussion about the contemporary history of Nigeria. I led the discussion with context questions that probed their knowledge of our pre and post-colonial history till date. It was indeed shocking to discover the knowledge gap in the responses of the students. For example, many of the students who are currently in the third year of junior secondary and senior secondary levels lack any knowledge of our contemporary history as nation.
They hardly know how and when Nigeria came into being. Apart from the cosmetic knowledge of when Nigeria gained independence on October 1, 1960, the students displayed ignorance of the independence struggles and the events leading to the Civil War. The answers they provided did not reflect rigour that organised learning based on structured curriculum had taken place. Generally, the responses reflected the emptiness of our curriculum which has replaced the teaching of history to topics from civic education and social studies.
Yet, these two subjects which replaced history at the primary and secondary levels cannot be the substitutes for the subject. Most Nigerian students also lack the knowledge of global historical developments and the place of Nigeria in the global narrative. With the removal of history, we are breeding a lost generation of children who lack depth and the inquisitiveness to ask the right questions. We are producing a generation of Nigerians who have no idea of historical developments and their place in the society. More worrisome is the role of the older generation and parents who seem not to care about the preservation of our history and cultural heritage as reflected in the teaching of history and languages. I have encountered Nigerian parents who do not want their child to learn Nigerian languages. In many schools today, the teaching of Nigerian languages is optional. The mother tongue is derisively labelled as vernacular.
Dear Sir, these anomalies are as a result of an educational system that lacks national goals and vision. What educational goals can a country who prohibits the teaching of its own history hope to achieve? What national ethos and values are we teaching the new generation when they lack basic knowledge of local and international history? How can policymakers sit by and watch the school system destroyed as it is in Nigeria today? Why are there different rules for private and public schools? Why does the same rule not apply?
In private schools, students are being taught British History, American History and even Chinese and Spanish History while in our public schools, the study of Nigerian History is removed from the curriculum. The reason for the removal of history as a subject of study cannot stand up to scrutiny when the subject still forms an integral part of curriculum in other serious countries. The British, American and other education systems all over the world make the study of history an important course of study. Yet, in our country, the subject was wiped off of the school system. The three arguments for removing history lack merit: the dearth of history teachers, lack of job for history graduates and students apathy to the subject are no valid reasons for removing the subject.
As an educator, I know history is still a favourite subject among students even up to the postgraduate level. Beyond the relevance of the subject to future careers of students, its importance for nation-building is critical for our peaceful co-existence in a nation of many fault lines. The study of history will foster national cohesion and preserve our heritage. It could be the answer to resolving many conflicts in the country. Proper teaching and learning of history will raise a generation of young people who appreciate our recent history at leadership level while resolving not to make the mistakes of the past.
According to the University of California Department of History mission statement on the teaching of history entitled, Significance of History for the Educated Citizen, the document states “In a democratic society, knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, what its core values are, or what decisions of the past account for present circumstances. Without history, we cannot undertake any sensible inquiry into the political, social, or moral issues in society. And without historical knowledge and inquiry, we cannot achieve the informed, discriminating citizenship essential to effective participation in the democratic processes of governance and the fulfilment for all our citizens of the nation’s democratic ideals.
“History opens to students the great record of human experience, revealing the vast range of accommodations individuals and societies have made to the problems confronting them, and disclosing the consequences that have followed the various choices that have been made. By studying the choices and decisions of the past, students can confront today’s problems and choices with a deeper awareness of the alternatives before them and the likely consequences of each.’’
Dear Minister, save the education system by re-introducing the history as a subject in our schools.
PUNCH
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