FG orders NERDC to separate CRK, IRK in curriculum

THE Federal Government has ordered the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) to make the Christian Religious Knowledge and Islamic Religious Knowledge distinctive subjects in the basic education curriculum.

The two subjects, which were subsumed under the Civil Education in the current curriculum by the Council has been a subject controversy in the last few months.

Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, gave the directive for the separation of the subjects on Thursday in Abuja, at the meeting of Ministers of Education with education stakeholders from six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The meeting attended by the Commissioners for Education from various States of the Federation was part of the ongoing efforts to strengthen the partnership within the three tiers of government in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDG4).

The minister noted Nigeria has selected the Goal 4 of the SDGs, which emphasises inclusive and quality education for all and promotion of lifelong learning, for implementation in view of the importance of education as a fulcrum to national development.

Adamu, who spoke through the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, said the directive to separate the subjects becomes imperative in view of the various complaints by Nigerians, especially the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), that has been vociferous about the issue.

He noted that the collapsed of the subjects was not done by the current administration as it was an effort by the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan to reduce the number of subjects offered by pupils and students in schools.

He said: “There is this controversy over the merger of CRK and IRK in the school curriculum. There were complaints by parents that children were overloaded with so many subjects and the recommendation then was to merge one or two subjects. Unfortunately, water and oil were merged together and it is not working.

“So, to save ourselves the agony, the two subjects should be separated. We push that to the NERDC,”he said.

Adamu, in his keynote address at the occasion, reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to revamping the education sector and appealed to the State Governments as well as relevant stakeholders to support the Federal Government effort.

He noted that the Federal was aware that in the journey towards achieving the the Education 2030 Agenda, key issues including the phenomenon of out-of-school children, insecurity in and around the schools and infrastructure decay must be addressed.

The minister said there was also the need to have credible and reliable data, and how to address the challenge of poor teacher quality as well as teacher gaps, low carrying capacity in tertiary institutions, and poor learning outcomes.