For years, mathematics has stood as a huge barrier, and for many, an impossible one to surmount, between many brilliant arts students and their dreams. In classrooms across Nigeria, countless creative minds, writers, poets, and thinkers found themselves at war with one subject that seemed to determine their worth. Now that mathematics has finally been made optional for arts students, there is reason to breathe a sigh of relief. Yet, beneath the relief, one question lingers: Did it come too late?

The truth is, this should have happened years ago. For as long as most of us can remember, mathematics has been compulsory for every student: Science, Commercial, and Arts alike. The logic was simple: everyone needs basic numeracy. But reality told a different story.

For arts students, it was never just about numbers. It was about years of anxiety, of feeling inadequate because their strength did not lie in formulas or equations. Many of them excelled in Literature, Government, and CRS subjects that demanded analysis, depth, and expression; yet, one poor grade in mathematics could erase all that brilliance.

Some rewrote exams over and over. Some changed their course choices. Some simply gave up. And so, while this new policy deserves applause, it also demands honesty, because this is a victory that came after too many losses.

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Educational reforms in Nigeria have a strange pattern: they often arrive after generations have already suffered the consequences. Making mathematics optional for arts students in 2025 feels like one of those bittersweet wins. Necessary, but painfully delayed.

Think about it.

How many dreams were postponed because of this? How many students sat at home because they could not get that “credit in maths”? How many writers, journalists, and lawyers-in-the-making lost confidence, not because they lacked intellect, but because they could not fit into a rigid system.

These were not failures of intelligence. They were failures of policy, of a system that insisted everyone must climb the same wall, even when their ladders were different.

Beyond the certificates and statistics, there is an emotional story here. For many arts students, mathematics was not just difficult; it was humiliating. It told them that they were not smart enough. It made some of them believe they did not belong in classrooms at all.

You can almost picture it: a student who could dissect Soyinka’s metaphors effortlessly but froze at the sight of algebra. Another who could debate politics and history with confidence, but felt reduced to nothing by numbers on a chalkboard.

We will never truly measure how much potential was lost in the process, how many creative voices were silenced under the weight of a subject that, for their path, simply was not necessary.

This should be more than a correction; it should be a wake-up call because the question is not only why this decision took so long, but why it had to take so long.

If mathematics can finally be made optional for arts students, what other outdated systems are we still holding on to? Education should be alive, responsive, flexible, and human. It should recognise that intelligence is diverse, and that creativity, empathy, and expression are just as valuable as logic and numbers.

Still, progress is progress. For the first time in a long while, arts students can breathe a little easier. They can focus on what truly shapes their future, without being haunted by what does not.

But as we celebrate, let us not forget the cost of delay. Behind this decision are countless stories that never got told,  students who could have been scholars, poets, diplomats, artists, but who gave up too soon because the system did not see them.

Making mathematics optional for arts students is more than a policy shift. It is a quiet confession that we got it wrong for too long. And maybe, just maybe, it is the beginning of a new kind of education, one that finally listens to the learner.

Meiza Nigeria