The Federal Government has inaugurated a Committee on Book Ranking and Selection aimed at improving the quality, standardisation, and affordability of textbooks used in Nigerian schools.
The committee was inaugurated on Monday in Abuja by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, who said the initiative was designed to close long-standing gaps in the nation’s textbook approval system that have allowed poor-quality materials, weak regulation, and excessive financial burdens on parents to persist.
Alausa said the current system had failed to properly validate and rank textbooks before approval, noting that some subjects had as many as 50 approved titles with no clear quality benchmarks.
“In such a situation, books of minimal instructional value sit on the same level as high-quality materials,” he said. “This does not serve our learners, teachers, or parents.”
The minister also criticised the widespread practice by some publishers of bundling consumable workbooks with core textbooks, a move that forces parents to buy new books every academic session.
“This has created unnecessary financial pressure on families and encouraged cosmetic revisions instead of genuine content improvement,” he said.
According to Alausa, the newly inaugurated committee will institutionalise reforms to cap the number of ranked textbooks per subject, introduce objective and transparent ranking standards, and protect learners and parents from exploitative practices.
“Your assignment is both timely and strategic,” he told committee members. “You are expected to critically review existing approval frameworks, recommend stronger assessment and ranking systems, define enforceable quality benchmarks, and propose mechanisms that ensure genuine content improvement before new editions are approved. You must also address pricing transparency, edition control, separation of textbooks from consumables, and the protection of learners and parents from unnecessary financial burdens.”
He disclosed that while regulatory agencies may approve more books, only seven top-ranked titles per subject would be officially recommended for selection by schools, particularly under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) framework.
Once approved and ranked, textbooks will remain in use for a minimum of three years, except where major curriculum or technological changes require updates.
The committee is chaired by the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, and includes the heads of key education agencies such as the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), UBEC, the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), and the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC).
Prof. Ahmad pledged the committee’s commitment to overhauling the approval process to ensure Nigerian learners have access to only high-quality instructional materials.
“At the moment, 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. “That is what we intend to change.”
Also speaking, NERDC Executive Secretary, Prof. Salisu Shehu, commended the Federal Government for the initiative, saying it would end the arbitrary manner in which textbooks are selected and ensure that only the best learning resources are adopted nationwide.
For years, Nigeria’s textbook approval system has been criticised for lacking clear quality benchmarks, resulting in dozens of approved books of varying standards per subject. This has contributed to inconsistent learning materials across schools and growing financial strain on parents.
The new committee is expected to introduce a structured ranking system, separate core textbooks from consumable workbooks, standardise editions, and enforce pricing transparency, ensuring that instructional materials align strictly with national curriculum standards.
The development also aligns with the Federal Government’s wider education reforms, including a reusable textbook policy aimed at reducing schooling costs.
Under the new framework, standardised textbooks are expected to last between four and six years, and schools are prohibited from bundling disposable workbooks w