The Federal Government has set 70 per cent as the minimum benchmark for textbooks to qualify for national ranking, warning that substandard instructional materials will no longer be allowed in Nigerian schools. The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, announced the benchmark in Abuja while receiving the report and ranked list……
The Federal Government has set 70 per cent as the minimum benchmark for textbooks to qualify for national ranking, warning that substandard instructional materials will no longer be allowed in Nigerian schools.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, announced the benchmark in Abuja while receiving the report and ranked list from the country’s first national textbook assessment and ranking exercise.
According to a statement on Friday, September 11, by the Minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, the assessment was part of the Federal Government’s quality assurance drive following the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025.
Alausa said the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) developed a standardised assessment toolkit, benchmarked against international best practices, to assess textbooks and ensure their alignment with the revised curriculum.
....: National Textbook Ranking System Effective Sept -Education Ministry
He said curriculum alignment accounted for 51 per cent of the assessment, while other criteria included language and style, instructional design, technical features, social and cultural compliance, and gender sensitivity.
The Minister said the 70 per cent threshold was established to ensure that only textbooks that meet an acceptable standard qualify for ranking, while publishers whose submissions fall below the benchmark would be allowed to correct identified deficiencies and resubmit their materials.
The assessment, however, revealed wide variations in the quality of textbooks submitted, with some scoring as low as 25 per cent.
Reacting to the findings, Alausa said the results had exposed a situation that could no longer be ignored.
“Some of the books being used in our schools, primary schools, junior secondary schools and senior secondary schools are trash. Some of these books are scoring 25% or lower. Is this the way our children should be educated? If this happened with the government, it will not happen with this government,” he said.
The Minister urged the Nigerian Publishers Association and affected publishers to study the assessment results, address identified shortcomings, align their textbooks with the revised curriculum and resubmit them for consideration.
“I’m giving you the olive branch,” Alausa said, while commending publishers who participated in the exercise despite what he described as “pressure and blackmail.”
He explained that the national textbook assessment would be conducted in three cycles to cover all levels of the basic and senior secondary school curriculum.
The first cycle covers Primary 1 and 4, JSS 1 and SS 1; the second covers Primary 2 and 5, JSS 2 and SS 2; while the third covers Primary 3 and 6, JSS 3 and SS 3.
Alausa also said the national curriculum would henceforth be reviewed every three years to keep pace with emerging educational, technological and societal needs.
The Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the assessment was conducted in line with the Council’s statutory mandate to develop, review and promote quality educational materials for the Nigerian education system.
Shehu said subject specialists, education experts and NERDC personnel participated in the exercise using an approved set of criteria and scoring framework.
He added that the process included peer review and was not based on the judgment of a single officer, with the results reflecting documented professional assessments and collective expert judgment.
The NERDC executive secretary said the 70 per cent threshold was adopted as the minimum standard for ranking, meaning submissions below the benchmark would not qualify for the ranked list.
He said the discovery of textbooks scoring as low as 25 per cent further highlighted the need for a transparent and evidence-based system for determining the quality of instructional materials used in schools.
Alausa said the exercise would serve as a quality-control mechanism under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, providing publishers with evidence of areas requiring improvement while ensuring that only materials meeting the required standards advance through the national ranking process.
He said the Federal Government would continue to work with publishers willing to meet the benchmark, while those already meeting it would be expected to sustain and improve their standards.
The Minister stressed that the exercise was aimed at protecting the quality of learning, insisting that every instructional material presented to Nigerian learners must be accurate, curriculum-aligned and fit for purpose.
