Nigeria’s National Policy on Education and the University Curriculum in History: Implication for Nation Building

Abstract

The paper reviewed the post-colonial education delivery and the emergence of Nigeria’s National Policy on Education, stressing a more proactive approach to the teaching of History in secondary schools and universities. The practice in Nigeria had been to promote the teaching of social studies and relegate history education because the teaching of social studies was considered a viable option for the achievement of cohesion among the various ethnic groups in Nigeria. The intensity in ethno-regional polarisation was an indication that different strategies used by government to resolve this ethno-regional problem had had no effect. The paper argued that the only option left for government was to recourse to history, as the situation tended to suggest that Nigerians’ problems stemmed from lack of historical consciousness. The adoption of history as an approach to achieve nation-building in Nigeria could only be meaningful if a modest teaching technique such as critical thinking was used in the classroom. Nigeria’s efforts at nation-building could effectively be anchored on the knowledge of the historical antecedents of Nigeria’s current travail.

Keywords: post-colonial education, ethno-regional problem, nation-building, historical consciousness, curriculum.