The Basic Education Bill, 2026, now before the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Education, is set for deliberation and, in the fullness of time, will become law.
I urge lawmakers to take advantage of the Bill to address some of the ambiguities and vagueness that permeate ongoing policy and legislative reforms on education.
We have no option. Clarity, precision and definiteness must permeate the language of policy and legislative reform on education.
Without this, the country will not move to the next frontier where education, particularly at basic levels, will conclusively address questions on access, equity, and quality.
Focus in the Basic Education Bill as the Basic Education Act, 2013, is excessively on the structural aspects of reform rather than curriculum aspects.
Education reform has two basic facets: structural and curriculum. Both are central to education. The law should address both equally and expansively.
While the Bill as the Basic Education Act 2013 is clear on the structural aspects of education, it is not as precise or unambiguous on the ultimate essence of education: curriculum content. The structural aspects refer to the layers or levels of schooling, education finance, teachers, bureaucracy and centres of control. It is cagey on the curriculum aspects —the meaning, objectives and challenges and how to address them.
The Bill's wording is imprecise. Lawyers will tell you that the words of the law are The Law. The substance of education, meaning, aims, and ambitions are left to conjecture. This shouldn’t be.
The law must be precise and clear. There is a word in linguistics called a referent. A referent is a person, thing, or idea that a word, phrase, or object refers to. A referent is the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression. It can be a person, thing, or idea. It might be concrete or abstract.
In the preliminary part of the Basic Education Bill, 2026, “basic education” means a programme offered at pre-primary, primary, junior school and senior school and includes a programme offered at adult and continuing education centres. Other legislative jurisdictions call this part the interpretation part.
Structurally, basic education refers to pre-primary, primary and secondary tiers of education. The levels of education as designed by our education policy. Basic education has an independent meaning, over and above what the Bill assumes. That is what should be stated.
Basic education refers to the foundational level of education that equips individuals with essential skills in literacy, numeracy and critical thinking.
The skills are foundational. They provide the guiding star that makes learning from grade four onwards easy.
Mastering the programme offered at pre-primary, primary, junior school and senior school depends on something extrinsic, something external to the four levels of education. Adult and continuing education cannot happen without proficiency in literacy and numeracy and the reasoning skills that reading proficiency generates.
Reading and numeracy are the gateway to knowledge—of the academic and vocational subjects. Learning depends on reading proficiency—the ability to read with accuracy, fluency and comprehension.
The concept of Basic Education is so critical in education policy, standards and curricula that it attracted the hallowed attention of former Prime Minister of England James Callaghan at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1976.
He observed: “There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, and skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?"
The drafters of the Education Bill, 2026 should have consulted as widely as possible. They would have underscored what basic education refers to. They would also have underscored the meaning, objectives, aims and goals of education—beyond imparting the competencies that have been outlined in the Basic Education Curriculum Framework, 2016—the blueprint of the Competence-Based Education (CBE).
Education has four or five essential components. Knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and habits of thinking and behaviour. An educational law must provide some guidance on the place of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and habits of thinking and behaviour in schooling and for what purpose other than serving the needs of the market or employment.
Policymaking and lawmaking should not just change education policy; it must also be an enlightened change.
This is an opportunity to provide a basis for educating children for the next 20 years or so. Let’s bring back rigour. Rigour in beginning reading at the lower levels of schooling, rigour in curriculum, rigour in curriculum materials, rigour in inspection and supervision and rigour in the management of examinations.
The cabinet secretary, Parliament and the President have an opportunity to stamp their legacy on education.
They have a historic duty to return educational excellence in all public schools in this country.
It can be done only if they focus a little more on the contents of the wine and not the beauty of the wineskins. The wine is more important than the wineskins.
The writer is a communication specialist
