A human rights organization known as the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has expressed its appreciation to the Kano State Government for its decision to ban textbooks containing explicit and inappropriate content in nursery, primary, and secondary schools.
In a statement, Mr. Hassan Indabawa, the Chairman of MURIC in Kano, commended the government’s action in removing objectionable and harmful teaching materials from the basic school curriculum.
He emphasized that Governor Abba Yusuf’s leadership in Kano had made this decision at an opportune moment.
“Therefore, all parents, educationists, learners and advocates must embrace and support the initiative so as to tame the alarming rise of immorality amongst the youths in the state,” he said.
Indabawa further said that MURIC was one of the front-line advocates for the removal of all obscene teaching aids from the nation’s educational system.
“MURIC rejoices and commends the government of Kano State for doing the needful by prohibiting the use of some selected teaching materials found to contain sexually explicit contents.
“Nigerians are aware that in the last 20 years, classical English literature books and novels such as Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and Things Fall Apart among others, have been removed from our school curricula.
“They have been replaced with sex-related local English literature and other science books containing lewd and pernicious matters to give the unsuspecting young school pupils the wrong impression that self-control is unnecessary.
“As we may equally be aware, one of the negative consequences of this is the sexualization of primary and secondary school pupils,” he said.
He added that the prohibition of the use of these offensive textbooks must be backed by appropriate legislation to provide a legal framework for sanctioning any erring school authority for effective implementation of the government’s directive.
“The Office of the Special Advisor on Private and Voluntary Institutions and Kano Educational Resource Department must be well-equipped to ensure strict compliance.
“We also call on other state governments to emulate Kano State by reviewing and removing all lewd and pernicious teaching materials from their various basic education curriculum,” he said.
NAN reports that the Kano government on Thursday, said it has banned the use of some textbooks across nursery, primary and secondary schools in the state, due to harmful and sexually explicit content.
This was contained in a statement issued by Malam Hamisu Ibrahim, the director of planning Research and Statistics office of the Special Adviser on Private and Voluntary Institutions in Kano.
“The Kano state government wishes to notify operators of both private and voluntary schools in the state that the under-listed books are prohibited for instruction use in our Nursery, Primary and Secondary Schools due to observed inclusion of inappropriate and sexually explicit content that is harmful to the morale of young students,” the government said.
[NAN]
