Psychological factors in curriculum innovations and policy-making in Nigeria

<ns3:p>Policy-making by authorities, especially the government of any country is not only significant but central and critical to the development and progress. The mode of policy-making can make or mar any society and country. It is not something that can be taken lightly or treated with levity in any aspect of societal life. Every society that has ever made significant development and progress has done so by focusing on its educational systems and the critical policies from which they evolve and are executed. Nigeria, as a developing country, aspires to join the comity of more developed nations and therefore believes that evolving educational policies can help in achieving this goal. However, making policies is one thing; how they evolve, their execution, and aftermath, are entirely different matters. When execution is poorly carried out or the policies are inadequately formulated, they have no impact and are impractical. It is said that curriculum innovations can introduce changes to an existing curriculum to improve it or bring forth a greater level of progress in its making. Many factors need to be considered when implementing innovations in the curriculum, these include the psychological impact, on its recipients. This is an area that is largely neglected by government policymakers in Nigeria, who usually introduce curriculum innovations and education policies that tend to impair rather than enhance academic studies and progress for students. This paper attempts to make a ground assessment of new policy implementations using selected states as case studies, while simultaneously examining the psychological effects of policymakers. It delves into this neglected area of the nation’s life and analyses how different policy innovations in the curriculum and educational sector in Nigeria have served more as impediments rather than enhances for recipients.</ns3:p>