Seperate IRK and CRK; Minister instructs NERDC

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on Thursday in Abuja, instructed the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council to make the Christian Religious Knowledge and the Islamic Religious Knowledge distinctive subjects in the basic education curriculum.

He gave this directive, during his meeting with stakeholders from the six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

These two subjects had been joined with Civil Education under Religion and National Values in the current schools’ curriculum, a development that generated controversy in the few months ago.

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.

Reports showed that the directive to separate the subjects became imperative in respect of the complaints by the Christian Association of Nigeria and other concerned Nigerians at large.

The minister denied claims putting the merging of these two subjects on the present administration and attributed it to the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration as it was an effort they introduced to reduce the number of subjects taken by pupils in schools.

 “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.