Nigeria ditches mother tongue, crowns English sole teaching medium in schools
The Nigerian Government has announced English as the sole language of instruction in her school system, having discarded the National Language Policy which made indigenous languages the primary media of instruction in her early school training system.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, made this public yesterday at this year’s British Council-sponsored Language in Education International Conference organised in Abuja.
The 2022 National Language Policy (NLP), now discarded, had provided for early childhood education up to Primary Six to be conducted in the child’s mother tongue, or in the language of their immediate community.
The policy was aimed at strengthening indigenous languages, promoting cultural identity, and improving early learning outcomes, while English remained the language for higher education and official communication.
Explaining the reason for scrapping that policy, Education Minister Alausa said that new findings show that the policy has impacted negatively on students’ academic performance, leading to widespread unwelcome outcomes in public examinations.
His words, “We have seen a mass failure rate in WAEC, NECO and JAMB in certain geo-political zones of the country and those are the ones that adopted this mother tongue in an oversubscribed manner.
“This is about evidence-based governance. English now stands as the medium of instruction from the pre-primary, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and to the tertiary education levels.”
He added that extensive research revealed a strong nexus between the use of indigenous languages and poor English comprehension and low examinations outcomes.
“Using mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions. We have to talk about evidence, not emotions,” he asserted.
“The national policy on language has been cancelled. English now stands as the medium of instruction across all levels of education,” Alausa declared.
He challenged those who disapproved of the decision to back their opinions with verifiable data, assuring that the government remained open to constructive, evidence-based counterpoints that would improve the nation’s education system.
The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmed, revealed that the government has introduced new teacher training modules focused on improving literacy and numeracy at the foundational level.
“Now we are designing a training package for the teachers that focuses on the learning of literacy and numeracy,” she explained.
“This is specifically training teachers that teach across the foundation level from pre-primary to primary one to three. We are training them on how best to teach literacy, how best to teach numeracy, and of course, the approach.”
In her remarks, Donna McGowan, the Country Director of the British Council Nigeria, reaffirmed the council’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s education reform.
“We’re committed to working hand-in-hand with the ministry. We work across all areas of education in terms of supporting teacher professional development, school leadership and language proficiency,” McGowan said