Abstract

The Nigerian political system is riddled with myriads of problems, which include political ignorance and poverty, election malpractices and rigging, pre and post-election violence, unresponsive leadership and high level corruption among politicians and public office holders. These challenges have consistently undermined the political progress and stability. Therefore, there is the need for a conscious, deliberate and organized political education in Nigerian senior secondary schools to tackle these series of problems. This explains why this study embarked on the development and validation of a political education curriculum. The study involved a two stage mixed design comprising the curriculum paradigm and survey. The elements of the developed political education curriculum were validated using the criteria of adequacy, suitability and relevance by curriculum experts and political science experts drawn from senior secondary schools, the Faculty of Education and Political Science Department of the University of Ibadan, Ibadan. Their responses were subjected to simple frequency count and percentage scores. The results showed that the developed and validated political education curriculum is adequate, suitable, and relevant in proffering solution to the problems confronting the Nigerian political system. It was recommended that the study should be replicated in other geo-political zones of Nigeria and that the Nigerian Educational Research and Development council should consider integrating political education into existing senior secondary school curricular.