FG bows to pressure, orders immediate separation of CRK, IRK in new curriculum

The Federal Government has directed the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) to separate the Christian Religious Knowledge and Islamic Religious Knowledge subjects in the basic education curriculum.

The grouping of IRK and CRK under the Civil Education in the new curriculum by the NERDC had generated controversy in the last few months with religious leaders calling for their separate teaching.

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, gave the directive at a meeting of Ministers of Education with education stakeholders from six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja today July 20th.

Adamu, who was represented by Minister of State for Education, Anthony Anwukah, said the directive to separate the subjects became necessary because of the various complaints by Nigerians, especially the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that has been vociferous about the issue.

The minister said: “There is this controversy over the merger of CRK and IRK in the school curriculum. There were complaints by parents that children were overloaded with so many subjects and the recommendation then was to merge one or two subjects. Unfortunately, water and oil were merged together and it is not working.

“So, to save ourselves the agony, the two subjects should be separated. We push that to the NERDC,”