FG Restores IRK, CRK as Separate Subjects in School's Curriculum

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

The government asked the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council, NERDC, the country’s education body to immediately reinstall the two subjects where they were before their grouping under the Civil Education.

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

The meeting, which was also attended by the commissioners for education in the 36 states, focused on the strengthening of partnership in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Speaking through the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah, Adamu said the directive to separate the subjects became imperative in view of the various complaints by Nigerians, especially the Christian Association of Nigeria.

He explained that the collapse of the two subjects was done by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to reduce the number of subjects offered by pupils and students in schools.

The minister 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,”

Adamu, in his keynote address, reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to revamping the education sector, while appealing to the state governments, as well as relevant stakeholders, to support the Federal Government’s effort.

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This post is authored by Olusegun Fapohunda, the founder and editor of MySchoolGist.

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