UBEC urges the Federal Government to make Literature in English Compulsory
Faith Alofe
The Universal Basic Education Commission has called on the Federal Government to make
Literature in English a compulsory subject in schools.
According to them, The President, Muhammadu Buhari appending his signature to the amended
copyright bill will energise copyright enforcement and help the Nigerian Copyright Commission
to do more.
The stakeholders including the Nigerian Publishers Association, Universal Basic Education
Commission and the Federal House of Representatives stated these at the Annual Conference
and General Meeting of the NPA with the title, “redefining publishing and reading culture in a
digital era.”
The President/Chairman-in-council of NPA, Uchenna Anioke, recalled that both chambers of the
National Assembly had passed and transmitted the bill to the president for subsequent assent in
July.
Speaking also, the Chairman of UBEC, Prof. Adamu Usman in his keynote address, argued that
the notion of regression of reading culture among students might not be very correct.
He, however, said a major solution to the poor reading culture in the country was for the
government to make Literature-in-English a compulsory subject in schools.
According to him, this will force students to read novels, adding that “they will also likely develop
an interest in reading other books.”
Usman said, “We may say reading culture is going down, but I think that is not very correct. As
we can see, there are a lot of people who read on the phone but the issue I think is what are
they reading and how qualitative are the materials.
“We need to ensure that these children read what we want them to read and I am suggesting
that the way out of this is to ensure that Literature-in-English is made compulsory
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