The federal government says Christian Religious
Knowledge (CRK) is compulsory for all Christian
students, while Islamic Religious Studies (IRS) for
their Muslim counterparts.

Adamu Adamu, minister of education, said this during
a press briefing at the end of the federal executive
council meeting presided over by Acting President
Yemi Osinbajo.

Adamu said those who want to destabilise the country
were behind the claims that the subject had been
removed from the school curriculum.

“I read in the papers that they asked the acting
president to confirm if the report that CRK had been
removed from the curriculum is true,” he said.

“There is no truth in that at all. It was just somebody’s
imagination probably somebody who wanted to raise
tension in the country after the Biafra issue and then
the quit order given by some young people in the north,
so the person just followed suit trying to stoke the
embers of religion. There is no truth whatsoever in
that. I repeat, no truth in it.

“There was a policy in 2012 which was given effect in
2014, that is even before this government came in.

One of the things I did as minister was to speak to the
national council on education to disarticulate history
from the social studies curricula because we believe
we want our young people to know our history.

“You cannot know who you are without knowing who
your ancestors were in the past. And the national
council of education did accept and agreed that the
teaching and learning of CRK has been made
compulsory for all Christians students and teaching
and learning of Islamic studies is compulsory for all
Muslim students.

“So you are actually accusing the ministry of the
opposite of what it has done? You to be more
responsible in handling the issues especially at this
time in history.”

Adamu said the council discussed only a single item
on the agenda, the roadmap on education sector and
developments.

According to him, council members agreed
unanimously that the standard of education has fallen
and there is a need for a ministerial retreat to urgently
address issues militating against the sector.

He disclosed that council members rejected the
blueprint presented by the ministry, and argued that
the problems in the sector were beyond blueprint.

“Today at council, we discussed many issues but the
most important was education. Members agree that
the fallen standard in education is so serious that we
will need a ministerial retreat to look at all the issues,”
he said.

“There are a lot of issues in education and all of them
are crying for solution. So, there will be a ministerial
retreat in the next two weeks to look at the issues and
from there we will take off in what we are doing.

“Initially, we had prepared a blueprint but FEC felt the
issues are beyond that because, there are crises in all
the areas of education, in out of school children, in
technical education and training, in ICT, in all the areas
you can think of. So, ministers are going to start
talking to themselves and come out with solutions.”

TheCable