Why is textile knowledge missing from our curriculums?

By Mojisola Oladeni

RIGHT before our unsuspecting eyes is a quiet tragedy that has been unfolding in our classrooms. A Nigerian child may stand before a blackboard and recite lines from William Shakespeare with admirable elegance; words such as metaphor, soliloquy, and iambic pentameter that are rolled across the tongue with academic pride. Yet that same child might struggle to name the threads that clothe his own history. Ask Nigerian students about Aso Oke, Adire, Akwete, or the ancient dyeing traditions of Kano, and silence would spread across the room. But the troubling question remains: how did a nation so richly woven with textile heritage produce generations that cannot identify the very fabric of their heritage? It was not always this way. Long before colonial classrooms were built, our fabrics were knowledge. Our fabric was economy, our fabric was identity. Northern Nigeria, for instance, once hosted one of Africa’s most formidable textile cultures. Historical records describe bustling centres where thousands of artisans dyed, spun, and wove cotton fabrics traded across the Sahara. By the nineteenth century, Hausa weaving centres were producing vast quantities of cloth that travelled as far as North Africa and the Atlantic trade routes. The loom was not merely a tool; it was a classroom, a philosophy, and a living archive of civilisation.

Fast forward to the 20th century and the story becomes even more astonishing. Nigeria once possessed one of the largest textile industries in Africa. During the 1970s and 1980s, over 180 textile mills operated across the country, providing employment for hundreds of thousands of Nigerians and supporting millions more through the cotton value chain.  Cloth production powered cities such as Kaduna and Kano, linking farmers, dyers, tailors, traders, and exporters in a vibrant industrial ecosystem. In those years, the sound of spinning machines was as familiar as the call to prayer or the ringing of school bells. Then came the long silence… Today, the once mighty industry lies weakened. From over 180 mills, the number has fallen drastically, with only a handful still functioning and the workforce shrinking dramatically. Nigeria now imports massive quantities of textiles, including more than ₦726 billion worth in 2024 alone. What used to be made in Ibadan, Kaduna, or Aba is now shipped from distant factories across oceans. The looms slowed, the cotton farms thinned, the knowledge faded. Yet perhaps the most painful wound is not economic but educational. Nigerian schools, with their proud examination systems and polished syllabuses, have somehow overlooked the very industries that once clothed the nation. Where in our curriculum are lessons on indigenous weaving? Where are practical workshops on fabric production? Why do pupils spend years memorising foreign literary traditions while remaining strangers to the textile heritage of their own ancestors?

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Look toward nations that took a different path. In countries like China, technical exposure begins early. Young students are introduced to manufacturing processes, craft traditions, and practical industry skills while still in basic education. The result has been a vast pool of technically competent youth powering manufacturing and innovation. It is not accidental that such systems feed strong industrial economies. Skills are planted early, like seeds in fertile soil. Imagine a Nigerian classroom where students learn the science of indigo dyeing alongside chemistry, where mathematics is taught through weaving patterns, where history lessons unfold through the story of Adire, Akwete, and Aso Oke. Education would no longer float in abstraction; it would touch the soil beneath our feet. Culture would breathe within the classroom walls.

Beyond cultural pride lies an economic argument that cannot be ignored. The textile sector historically provided livelihoods to millions across farming, manufacturing, and trade networks. A revived industry, powered by skilled young Nigerians, could become a formidable engine for employment. In a nation where youth unemployment continues to haunt households, should we not ask a daring question: what if the next industrial revival begins not in factories, but in classrooms? Scholars of education have long argued that knowledge becomes powerful when it is rooted in local context. The Brazilian thinker, Paulo Freire, once wrote that education must connect learners with their lived realities. When students are taught skills tied to their culture and economy, learning becomes alive rather than mechanical. A child who weaves cloth does not merely learn craft. Geometry is discovered in patterns. Chemistry hides within dye vats. Economics breathes through markets.

The disappearance of textile knowledge from Nigerian education therefore represents more than curriculum oversight. It symbolises a deeper cultural amnesia. When a nation forgets the crafts that once sustained it, it risks losing the pathways that once led to prosperity. Fabrics are not merely garments. They are history stitched into colour, identity folded into texture. So perhaps the question must be asked again, louder this time. Why are Nigerian children being raised far from the loom? Why do classrooms echo with foreign verses while the ancient rhythms of weaving fade into silence? Somewhere between the chalkboard and the marketplace, something precious has been misplaced. And perhaps the time has come to thread it back into the fabric of education.

•Oladeni is the CEO of House of Moh Fabrics