FG shifts implementation of new basic school curriculum to Sept

The Federal Government has postponed the rollout of the revised basic education curriculum to September 2025.

This comes as it said the introduction of compulsory 12 years of uninterrupted basic education would involve the phasing out of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), also known as ‘Junior WAEC’.

Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, stated this at a press conference on Friday in Abuja.

Recall that the immediate past Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, had in October 2024 announced that the new curriculum for basic education would commence across schools in January 2025.

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In December 2024, The Guardian had reported that logistical challenges were hindering the implementation process, casting doubts on the government’s ability to meet the proposed date.

Mamman said the revised curriculum would include 15 vocations such as plumbing, robotics, beekeeping, hairstyling and makeup, tiling and floor works, phone repairs, and solar installation, among others.

President Bola Tinubu would later relieve Professor Mamman of his duties and appoint Dr. Tunji Alausa as the new Minister of Education, marking a significant change in the administration’s education leadership.

But speaking at a press conference on Friday, Dr. Alausa said the next seven months would be used for the preparatory stage, including preparing teachers’ guides for using the curriculum, training teachers, setting up classrooms, among other tasks.

He said: “That curriculum starts in September 2025 with the new student enrollment. We are now going through the last phase of it, which is teacher training. We are training our teachers to implement that curriculum. So it is set to start in the new academic session in the September 2025 admission year.”

The minister also announced that the new compulsory 12-year basic education program will replace the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), also known as ‘Junior WAEC’.

According to him, BECE will be phased out as part of the education reform, stressing that it is a proposal that will be presented to the National Council on Education for approval later in the year.

He said consultations are ongoing with stakeholders in the education sector to gain their buy-in.

“Currently, we have Primary Six. After finishing Primary Six, they go to Junior Secondary School. The Common Entrance exam has been abolished, except for those going to Federal Unity Schools. Now you have BECE that you take from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School. We will phase out BECE as well. So the kids will just flow from Primary Six, Junior Secondary School, and Senior Secondary School.

“If we do that, we would have inculcated better education in these children. We won’t have people dropping off at JSS Three. At that point when they drop out at that level, they are not equipped. They don’t have enough education. So they become not useful to themselves and society.

“It is just adding three more years of education for our children. This, we believe, will improve their ability to move forward in life,” he said.

He said plans are underway to make a case to President Tinubu to increase the share of the Consolidated Revenue Fund allocated to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) from two percent to five percent.

“We want to use one percent of that funding to fund a very important part of our education that has been neglected at this point: Early Child Care Development Education, the pre-primary education, which is not funded. So that we can now create a different kind of funding pattern for our day care centers,” he added.