By Ike Uchechukwu

The Nigerian Educational Research & Development Council, NERDC, has disclosed that new Curriculum being developed for Senior secondary must be able to produce students with skills and technical know how that can provide solutions to Nigeria’s problems.

The Executive Secretary of NERDC, Professor Ismail Junaidu made this known during the South-South Zone National Stakeholders’ Dialogue for the review of the Senior Secondary education curriculum (SSEC) held in Calabar at the weekend.

Prof. Junaidu said it was high time we came up to speed in terms of reviewing our curriculum adding that 21-century core Skills need to be more prominent and harmonized in them so that our children can be properly equipped to tackle our challenges with workable homegrown solutions.

He explained that many of such items were already in our curriculum but we’re scattered and not given the needed prominence adding that ideally curriculums should be reviewed every five years but the SSEC, was last reviewed about a decade ago which is why it became important to have the meeting.

His words:” We need to inculcate and harmonize things like critical thinking, creativity , information technology do so that we can produce young people with solutions that can bring great development and growth in our country

“We need a curriculum that is embedded with skill-oriented subjects that would bring out the best in our Secondary school students and make them creative minds that can provide solutions that will eradicate poverty and also create employment.

“We need a curriculum that is technically sound and practically implementable not just theories , the world has moved due to dynamic nature of things if Nigerians in other climes are excelling and becoming number in there, which means there is a gap we need to fill here at home,” he said

He also explained that part of the discuss would include critical emerging issues like knowledge ,skills and competencies that senior secondary school students should acquire in order to make meaningful contribution to the
development of Nigeria.

The Executive Secretary also said that the review of the major gaps in the current senior secondary education programme in Nigeria as well suggesting strategies for mitigating those challenges was part of the expected outcome of the meeting.

Speaking further, he explained that there was need to carry everyone along including the students, teachers, parents as well as policymakers so as to have a rich review that would be workable .

“We needed to carry everyone along, which was why we made sure that students, teachers, parents, and other pivotal stakeholders were brought in so that we can hear from all sides ,the students we have today have moved ahead, so we need to come up with a curriculum that can further make them better with the future in proper consideration.

On his part , Alabo Amuso PTA / School-Based Management Committee, Bayelsa state who spoke on behalf of parents described the meeting as a welcome development that would bring a huge development to the country.

He also called on the NERDC not to Allie History as a subject to be removed from the curriculum as it was important fir generations yet unborn to know about what happened in the past adding that technical knowledge was also vital .

” I want them to maintain History as a subject so that our children yet unborn can know and learn from it ,skills like carpentry , welding , fabrication, should be given prominence ,let our children have skills that they can develop and survive with not only white collar skills ,” he said .

Vanguard News Nigeria