An Original Investigation into the Theoretical Basis for Decolonising the Secondary School Curriculum in Nigeria

Decolonising the curriculum is a scholarly and policy imperative with significant theoretical underdevelopment in the Nigerian secondary school context, where colonial curricular legacies persist in content, pedagogy, assessment, and knowledge hierarchies that disadvantage indigenous epistemologies. This study conducted an original theoretical investigation into the basis for decolonising the secondary school curriculum in Nigeria, generating a theoretical decolonisation framework grounded in both international decolonial scholarship and primary empirical research. A constructive theoretical methodology was employed, drawing on systematic review of decolonial curriculum scholarship (74 publications from 2015 to 2024), critical discourse analysis of current secondary school curriculum documents across five subject areas, structured interviews with 35 curriculum theorists, indigenous knowledge scholars, and secondary school curriculum practitioners from all six geopolitical zones, and expert consultation. The critical discourse analysis revealed that Western knowledge hierarchies persist in 71.3 percent of analysed curriculum content, indigenous knowledge was positioned as supplementary or anthropological rather than epistemologically equivalent in 84.6 percent of content instances, and assessment frameworks privileged Western academic discourse conventions in 92.3 percent of cases. The original Nigerian Curriculum Decolonisation Framework proposes five decolonisation dimensions: knowledge plurality, pedagogical sovereignty, epistemological equity, historical recentering, and community curriculum authorship. Each dimension includes specific curriculum design criteria and implementation guidance. Expert review by 22 decolonial education scholars confirmed the framework's original theoretical contribution and practical applicability to Nigerian curriculum reform.

Keywords: decolonising curriculum, secondary school, Nigeria, theoretical framework, indigenous epistemology