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•’Policy’ll hike cost of publication’
By Gabriel Dike
The Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA) on Wednesday rejected the implementation of the new textbook ranking policy by the Federal Ministry of Education (FME) and demanded for immediate review of the entire process.
The Association at a briefing in Lagos explained that the unpopular experiment would cost members N135million to publish basic and senior secondary textbooks.
Addressing newsmen, NPA President, Mr. Lukman Dauda described the education ministry new textbook ranking policy as smacks of deceit shrouded in the cloak of educational reforms.
Dauda said the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) presented the policy as a means of ensuring that learners have access to accurate, relevant, and affordable educational materials.
According to him, the central feature of the policy is the ranking of educational textbooks intended for use in basic and secondary schools across Nigeria and that NERDC went ahead to begin the implementation without concluding it engagement with NPA and other stakeholders.
He said the Association in April 28, 2026, rejected the policy and called for its immediate withdrawal, stating that NPA position was based on clear, objective, and verifiable concerns about the policy’s implications for education, competition, publishing, and constitutional governance.
Dauda revealed that following its public rejection of the policy, NERDC sent a letter dated 1 May and another one May 29 for engagement on June 2 and the Association believed the consultation would help address the serious concerns raised by industry stakeholders.
At the engagement, he said NERDC provided additional details about the proposed policy and disclosed that implementation plans were already in place.
According to him, NERDC said publishers would first submit books for evaluation by the council officials after payment of prescribed fees, books scoring at least 70% would proceed to the next stage.
Others are that publishers whose books successfully passed the first stage would make another payment for the second stage, the second stage would involve ranking the books and NERDC also disclosed that implementation timelines had already been fixed and were scheduled to commence immediately from the date of the engagement.
He disclosed that NPA restated its opposition to the policy and urged NERDC to strengthen the existing evaluation system rather than introduce ranking, Nigeria’s situation is fundamentally different, ranking would encourages bias, creates winners and losers and the consequence is huge unemployment, the new curriculum is still being implemented, the danger of book scarcity and constitutional concerns.
Dauda explained that NPA did not merely criticize the policy but practical alternatives were proposed, which include the ministry and its agencies undertake a comprehensive review of the challenges confronting Nigeria’s education sector and engage stakeholders in developing sustainable solutions.
The Association suggested that rather than ranking textbooks as first, second, third, a clear standard be set and compliance vigorously enforced, adding,
“publishers whose books meet those standards be approved without ranking them against one another.
He added that the Association also recommended that NERDC publish a list stating, “the following books have passed through the rigorous process of evaluation and assessment, and have met the prescribed standards, align with the national curriculum, and are therefore recommended for use in Nigerian schools.”
The president observed that the approach would promotes quality assurance while preserving fairness, competition, innovation, and consumer choice, adding, “assurances were secured from the NERDC team to make adjustments to the implementation to accommodate some of the genuine concerns expressed by NPA.”
He argued that the release of the implementation time table and its contents two days after the engagement with NERDC with no reference to NPA submission during the meeting further strengthens it concern about the sincerity of the ministry and transparency of the process.
“It also shows the desperation of the federal ministry of education to bulldoze its way through the implementation of the policy, not minding the consequences,” he stated.
The Association observed that the ministry, in collaboration with NERDC has turned the policy into a money making venture with publishers to pay N2, 000 per page for each subject for Assessment and N1, 000,000 per subject for the ranking.
He said for Basic education with 51 subjects, which has 102 books with work books and senior secondary with 37 subjects, publishers would pay N47, 570,000 for book assessment only and for ranking, they would cough out N88, 000,000, bringing the total for assessment and ranking to N135, 570,000.
Dauda said it is not late for the ministry to reconsider the policy and called on the ministry, NERDC, state governments, educators, parents, authors, booksellers, school proprietors, and stakeholders in the book ecosystem to add their voice with a view to reviewing the policy before irreversible damage is done.
