The long-running debate over the ideal language for teaching Nigerian children has seen another decisive shift. On Thursday, 13 November, the Federal Government announced a major policy reversal, opting to reinstate English as the mandatory language of instruction from the pre-primary level right through to tertiary institutions.
This move effectively superseded previous policy directions, including the 2022 National Language Policy (NLP), which had aimed to enforce instruction in the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community up to primary six.
Language is fundamental to national, socio-economic, and human development, and nations rightly make efforts to preserve their cultural heritage through their languages. Nigeria’s history reflects a complex interaction between indigenous languages and English. Since the colonial era, English has served as the administrative and official language, while selected local languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba etc) are promoted in schools as language subjects and through school activities like plays, songs and cultural events.
In recent decades, however, several state governments have taken steps to make the mother tongues, rather than English, the main language of instruction. They often reference research, such as Professor Babs Fafunwa’s 1970s study in Ile Ife, which suggested better academic performance for students taught in Yoruba. In fact, just before the national policy reversal, the Kano State government had announced that Hausa would become the language of instruction from primary to junior secondary.
The crisis of foundational literacy
In his announcement of the policy shift, the Minister of Education Dr Tunji Alausa lamented that the implementation of the mother tongue policy has failed to deliver academic results everywhere it’s been implemented. “Using the 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,” the minister said.
The Minister highlighted a mass failure rate in national examinations (WAEC, NECO, and UTME) in geopolitical zones that had “adopted this mother tongue in an oversubscribed manner.”
The national data on literacy among schoolchildren is equally sobering. UNICEF’s Nigeria Education Factheets (2023) reported that 73 per cent of Nigerian schoolchildren aged 7 to 14 years cannot read a simple sentence or solve a simple mathematics problem. This learning gap is most pronounced in rural areas, where 87% of school children struggle to read at the expected level. Source: Unicef, Nigeria’s Education Factsheets (2023)
Possible explanations for the policy’s failure include a shortage of qualified teachers and materials to enable teaching in mother tongues, poor parental attitudes to the policy, and dialect mismatches between pupils and teachers.
Perpetuating inequality
The impact of the mother tongue policy would have been uneven too. In rural and poorer communities, English is rarely spoken at home, making schools the only viable setting for a child to learn the language of the national curriculum and high-stakes examinations. When instruction is delivered in the mother tongue and English is delayed or minimised, rural and/or poorer children are deprived of the opportunity to develop the English ability they would need not only for their academics but for a future professional life.
While the mother tongue policy might have been well-intentioned, it is likely to have inadvertently perpetuated an inequitable system. Urban, wealthier students, often exposed to English at home and in private schools maintained their academic advantage. Meanwhile, rural, lower-income students, entirely reliant on the school system, fell drastically behind because they were not properly taught in English, the language in which their critical examinations would be delivered.
Unless local languages become the languages of assessment for examinations like WAEC and UTME, their imposition as the language of instruction creates a significant academic barrier for certain categories of students.
English proficiency is important for global competitiveness….
English is undeniably the global language of technology, finance, and academia. For instance, it’s been estimated that 98% of all scientific research is published in English. Mastering it is therefore a prerequisite for Nigerian graduates to participate successfully in the international knowledge economy.
Prioritising English as the medium of instruction allows for a streamlined, efficient learning process that directly aligns with the language of assessment (e.g., in high-stakes examinations). This ensures students spend their academic career mastering the language they will need to achieve success in an increasingly anglicised world.
It is clear that early and consistent immersion in English from the pre-primary level accelerates English proficiency. This process is crucial for developing the robust verbal and written skills necessary to grasp complex subjects like mathematics, sciences, and history, which are taught and assessed in English within the national curriculum.
…and for national unity
In a country boasting over 500 indigenous languages, English remains the essential unifying medium (lingua franca) for communication, government, law, and major commerce. We should leverage the historical advantage of having English as our language of business and law, rather than inadvertently creating further fragmentation.
A standardised language of instruction ensures that students can move seamlessly between any of Nigeria’s 36 states. It can protect against artificial academic barriers for families moving across state lines and reinforces a shared educational foundation throughout this diverse nation.
Pragmatic, without sacrificing heritage
The policy shift is a pragmatic effort to rescue millions of Nigerian children from a crippling learning deficit. It does not signal the abandonment of Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage; the government acknowledges the importance of Nigerian languages for cultural preservation.
The most pragmatic model for a developing, multilingual nation is to clearly separate the roles of languages: English serves as the medium of instruction to ensure academic competency and global competitiveness, while Nigerian languages will continue to be taught as compulsory language subjects in schools, complementing parental teaching of mother tongues at home.
All in all, the return to English as the primary language of instruction seems like the right call as part of efforts to rescue millions of Nigerian children from a crippling learning deficit.
Sodiq Alabi is the programme director of EduIntel.