Challenges of Developing Climate Change Curricula for Basic Education Level in Nigeria

Contents in climate change and disaster risk reduction education are to feature as revolving themes across subjects such as English Studies, Basic Science and Technology, and Religious and Values Education in a new structure of Basic Education (BE) released by Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in 2012. This paper analyses how basic education curricular can be used to promote global social issues such as enlightening the populace about climate change. The aim is to explore challenges that are involved in doing so. This task is undertaken against the background that implementing the agenda of global dimensions into curriculum realities often has to cope with local resistance and scepticism. One source of resistance, for instance, is how global agenda are generally conveyed in a language and style that makes it difficult for local actors to comprehend how these issues are relevant to their situations. By engaging with major themes of the debate over climate change, the paper analyses the implications of these themes in developing content and resources for the teaching of climate change education at the basic education level. A number of options are also proposed for identifying culturally-responsive pedagogies/resources for teaching climate change at the basic education level in Nigeria.

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