A Teachers’ Guide was also presented for teaches of the subject from primary one to Junior Secondary School by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, in Abuja on Tuesday.
During the colonial period, the education ordinance made provision for the study of history even though it was just the history of the British.
Early educated elites challenged the absence of African history. At independence, history became a favourite subject on schools’ curriculum.
However, the 1969 National Curriculum Conference and the adoption of the 6-3-34 education system thereafter, affected the teaching of history with the expunging of the subject from Primary and Junior School curriculum replacing it with Civic Education and Social Studies.
Many scholars agreed that this was due to Nigeria’s preference for style over substance thereby denying the young pupils the knowledge of the Civil War and some other areas.
Several years after, government made a complete reversal with the return of history to Primary and Junior Secondary Schools’ curriculum, even as previous administrations were put under pressure by history teachers under the Historical Society of Nigeria.
The now re-introduced history as a subject comprises the concepts of history, origin and people heroes and heroines in Nigeria, and political developments in Nigeria.
Other areas are geography, environment, economics, trade and commerce, culture and customs and external contacts.
With the re-introduction of history as a subject into the Basic School Curriculum beginning from September 2018, it is the expectation of government that the desires of the people, who have been yearning for it, will be met.