The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, has declared that textbooks scoring below 70 per cent in the Federal Government’s national assessment will not qualify for ranking, following the discovery that some instructional materials scored as low as 25 per cent.

Alausa made the declaration in Abuja on Thursday while receiving the report and ranked list from Nigeria’s first national textbook assessment and ranking exercise.

The Minister said the outcome had exposed serious quality gaps in some textbooks being submitted for use in Nigerian schools, insisting that the Federal Government would no longer compromise the quality of instructional materials under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

He said the 70 per cent benchmark was established to ensure that only textbooks that meet acceptable quality standards qualify for national ranking.

Alausa said the findings were particularly disturbing because some of the books assessed were scoring 25 per cent or lower.

“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.

He, however, assured publishers whose textbooks failed to meet the benchmark that they would have an opportunity to correct identified deficiencies and resubmit their materials.

“I’m giving you the olive branch,” Alausa said, while commending publishers who participated in the assessment despite what he described as “pressure and blackmail.”

The assessment was conducted by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) as part of the Federal Government’s broader quality assurance measures following the introduction of the revised national curriculum in September 2025.

NERDC developed a standardised assessment toolkit, benchmarked against international best practices, to determine the extent to which textbooks align with the revised curriculum and meet required educational standards.

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 Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Salisu Shehu, said the assessment was conducted by subject specialists, education experts and NERDC personnel using an approved scoring framework.

According to him, the process included peer review and collective expert assessment to ensure that the outcome was not based on the judgment of a single official.

Shehu said textbooks scoring below 70 per cent would not qualify for the national ranked list, adding that the low scores recorded by some submissions demonstrated the need for a transparent and evidence-based system for evaluating instructional materials.

Alausa said the 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.

The Minister also announced that the national curriculum would henceforth be reviewed every three years to keep it responsive to emerging educational, technological and societal needs.

He said the textbook ranking exercise was designed not only to identify quality instructional materials but also to provide publishers with evidence-based feedback on areas requiring improvement.

Alausa stressed that the ultimate objective was to ensure that every Nigerian child has access to accurate, curriculum-aligned and fit-for-purpose instructional materials.

He said publishers that meet the benchmark would be expected to sustain and continually improve their standards, while those below the threshold would have to address identified shortcomings before their textbooks could qualify for ranking.