Page 30 - Grundtvig International Secondary School Yearbook 2019

MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT

MR. CHIBUZOR NWUTARA
HOD MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT MR. RUDOLPH ARHANMHUNDE MRS. ROSE OHABUCHI MR. SAMUEL ODIBO

MR. RUDOLF NGIRISHI MR. SIMON EZE MR. BERNARD ODOM MR. CHUKWUKA IDIKA

OVERLOADED AND UNSTABLE CURRICULUM: WHICH WAY NIGERIA?

deally, this is supposed to be eulogizing the celebrants, our graduating students who, by every
metric, merit it. But the way God configured me, I often ditch protocol especially under necessity
Ior emergency. I'm going to discuss something that has been giving me nightmares: our national
curriculum. It's a national emergency. Unfortunately, for want of space, I shall make it mercifully
short. So, if you are fanatical about this present education policy in the junior secondary, please go to
other sections of this yearbook; without apologies, I am not.

If you are not a patriot, once Nigeria is mentioned, what comes to your mind is dysfunction, dystopia.
Beautiful but abandoned projects litter the landscape. Well- crafted policies that would have made the
country a truly African or even world giant are usually stillborn. What no other person, apart from me,
seems to notice are the bloated courses in our present curriculum. If I am not the only citizen pained by
the weight of this stuffy program, why is it that nobody is complaining about it in the social media,
newspapers, on blogs or television? Instead, during phone-in programs, especially on radio or
television, about any of our socio-cultural disorientations, you are sure to hear a heart-broken
Nigerian suggest that so and so should be integrated in our national curriculum. Again? There is a limit
to what every natural system, organic or physical, can tolerate. Nigeria has broken another negative
record in burdening her youths with unnecessary materials in her present national curriculum.

The 6-3-3-4 system we just jettisoned is still working in America. Now, the creators of the present
curriculum argue that it is 9-3-4 that will lead us to our el dorado. I am not sure. An early teenager in
junior secondary is subjected to 16 compulsory subjects. But the most annoying part of it all are the
inconsistencies in the status of these subjects, duplications of contents and the recent unholy
marriages among, them during the final examination. In case you are not current, these are the junior

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