Upper Basic Civic Education Curriculum in Nigeria: Lapses and seventeen untackled queries

Abstract

Educational practices in indigenous Nigeria had social content in which civic education was preponderant. The colonial educational outfit had a patchy civic education curriculum which was British culture-biased and, therefore, was not pertinent to our people’s aspirations. A little after independence on October 1, 1960, the pervasive colonial oriented education with its twist of colonial civic education curriculum was criticized and the result was a refashioning of curricula which became operational in schools from 1982 but in which civic education was completely shielded out. It was not until the year 2007 that civic education curriculum for the 9-year Basic Education was bom to exist paripasu with social studies curriculum. This paper in drawing attention to the fact that civic education is, an unnecessary duplication of social studies curriculum in another garb, outlines the lapses in Upper Basic Civic Education Curriculum and in addition raises seventeen (17) yet to be tackled queries. An immediate revision of Civic Education Curriculum is recommended.