The return of History to schools
By Adekunle Adekoya FOR some days now, an official letter of the Lagos State Government to owners and heads of private schools has been trending in the social media. The letter, purportedly from the Office of Education Quality Assurance of the state's Ministry of Education, dated August 3, was titled “Re: Introduction of History in Lagos State Schools”, and signed by a director. While I find that a welcome development, one needed to recap how this debacle, because that is what it is, started in the first place. The subject was removed from the teaching curriculum by the Federal Government in 2007. Before this, however, History was not a core subject but instead buried amongst social studies lessons. Between 2007 and 2019, History had been largely absent from schools as a stand-alone subject. One of the reasons given for the removal of History was supposedly because students avoided the subject, while graduates of History didn't have job prospects and teachers were scarce. But ...