The Federal Government has inaugurated a committee on Book Ranking and Selection to enhance the quality and affordability of textbooks used in Nigerian schools.
The announcement was made in Abuja on Monday during the inauguration, with the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa.
The initiative aims to address gaps that have allowed poor-quality materials, lack of standardisation, and excessive financial burdens on parents to persist.
What the minister said
Speaking at the event, Minister Alausa said the current system had failed to validate and rank textbooks before approval properly.
He explained that some subjects had as many as 50 approved books with no clear quality benchmarks, allowing instructional materials of minimal quality to be approved alongside higher-quality options.
The minister further noted that publishers often bundled workbooks and consumables with core textbooks, forcing parents to buy new books annually and adding unnecessary financial pressure.
He said the new committee would institutionalise reforms to cap the number of ranked textbooks per subject, ensure objective and transparent ranking, and protect learners and parents from exploitative practices.
“Your assignment is both timely and strategic. You are expected to critically review existing approval frameworks, recommend strengthened assessment instruments and ranking systems, define clear and enforceable quality benchmarks, and propose mechanisms that ensure genuine content improvement before new editions are approved. You are also expected to address issues of pricing transparency, edition control, separation of textbooks from consumable workbooks, and protection of learners and parents from unnecessary financial burdens,” Alausa said.
The minister added that while regulatory agencies could approve more books, only seven would be officially ranked for selection by schools, particularly under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) framework.
Once ranked and approved, textbooks would remain in use for a minimum of three years unless significant curriculum or technological changes required updates.
Committee composition
The committee will be chaired by the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, and include heads of key education agencies such as NERDC, UBEC, the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), and the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC).
Prof. Ahmad pledged the committee’s commitment to reforming the textbook approval process to ensure learners have access to high-quality materials.
“As long as a textbook meets the minimum standard, it is approved, without any benchmark to determine whether it is of grade A, B or C quality,” she said.
NERDC Executive Secretary, Prof. Salisu Shehu, commended the federal government for the initiative, noting that it would end the arbitrary manner in which books were selected and ensure that only the best instructional materials are adopted nationwide.
What this means
Nigeria’s textbook approval system has long been criticised for lacking clear quality benchmarks, with many subjects featuring dozens of approved titles of varying standards. This has contributed to financial strain on parents and inconsistency in learning materials across schools.
The new committee is expected to reform the process by ranking textbooks, separating core materials from consumables, standardising editions, and enforcing pricing transparency.
These measures would provide Nigerian learners with reliable, high-quality resources and ensure that instructional materials align with national curriculum standards.
What you should know
This also follows a wider education reform that includes a new reusable textbook policy designed to make schooling more affordable for parents.
Under this framework, standardised textbooks are last between four and six years, and schools are now prohibited from bundling disposable workbooks with core textbooks, a practice that previously forced families to buy new books every session with little improvement in learning content.
By this, textbooks can be reused across multiple academic years and even by siblings, significantly reducing recurring education costs and waste.
