THE Federal Government has raised serious concerns over the poor quality of textbooks used in Nigerian schools after a nationwide assessment revealed that some instructional materials scored as low as 25 per cent.
Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, described the findings as unacceptable, saying the outcome exposed a problem that could no longer be overlooked. According to him, many textbooks currently being used in primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools fall far below acceptable standards.
“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,” the minister said.
Despite the poor performance, Alausa said the assessment was not intended to exclude publishers from the education sector. Instead, he urged the Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA) and affected publishers to review the assessment results, correct the identified deficiencies, align their books with the revised national curriculum and resubmit them for evaluation.
Offering what he described as an opportunity for improvement, the minister said, “I’m giving you the olive branch,” while commending publishers who participated in the exercise despite what he called pressure and blackmail.
He disclosed that the national textbook assessment would be carried out in three phases covering all classes in basic and senior secondary education. The first phase covers Primary 1 and 4, JSS 1 and SS 1; the second includes Primary 2 and 5, JSS 2 and SS 2; while the third will assess Primary 3 and 6, JSS 3 and SS 3.
Alausa also announced that the national curriculum would now be reviewed every three years to ensure it keeps pace with emerging educational, technological and societal developments.
The Minister also announced a 70 per cent minimum benchmark for textbooks seeking national ranking, insisting that only materials meeting the required quality standard would qualify, while publishers of poorly rated books would have the opportunity to make corrections and resubmit them.
He made the announcement in Abuja while receiving the report of Nigeria’s first national textbook assessment and ranking exercise, describing it as part of the Federal Government’s commitment under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to improve standards across the education sector.
According to Alausa, the assessment forms part of the government’s quality assurance reforms following the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025. He explained that the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) developed a standardised assessment toolkit benchmarked against international best practices to ensure textbooks comply with the new curriculum and meet acceptable quality standards.
The minister said curriculum alignment accounted for 51 per cent of the overall assessment, while other evaluation areas included language and style, instructional design, technical features, social and cultural compliance, and gender sensitivity.
Reaffirming President Tinubu’s commitment to improving education under the Renewed Hope Agenda, Alausa said the assessment would serve as a quality-control mechanism, helping publishers identify areas requiring improvement while ensuring that only books meeting the required standard progress through the national ranking process.
He assured that the Federal Government would continue working with publishers willing to meet the benchmark, while those already producing quality materials would be expected to maintain and continually improve their standards.
The minister stressed that the exercise goes beyond ranking textbooks, insisting that every instructional material used by Nigerian learners must be accurate, curriculum-compliant and fit for purpose because the government will not compromise on the quality of education every Nigerian child deserves.
Providing more details, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the assessment was conducted in line with the council’s statutory responsibility to develop, review and promote quality educational materials across the country.
He explained that subject specialists, education experts and NERDC officials jointly evaluated the textbooks using an approved assessment framework. The process also included peer reviews to ensure that the final scores reflected collective professional judgment rather than the opinion of any individual assessor.
Prof. Shehu said the 70 per cent benchmark was adopted as the minimum score required for textbooks to qualify for the national ranking, noting that books scoring below the mark would not be listed. He added that the discovery of textbooks with scores as low as 25 per cent reinforced the need for a transparent, evidence-driven system for evaluating instructional materials nationwide.
