Nigeria cancels mother-tongue teaching in primary schools and reverts to English

The Nigerian government has announced it is cancelling a controversial policy that mandated the use of indigenous languages for teaching in the earliest years of schooling instead of English.

Education Minister Tunji Alausa said the programme, introduced just three years ago, had failed to deliver and was being scrapped with immediate effect.

Instead, English will be reinstated as the medium of instruction from pre-primary levels through to university.

The now-defunct programme was launched by former Education Minister Adamu Adamu, who had argued that children learnt more effectively in their mother tongue.

At the time, Adamu argued that pupils grasped concepts more readily when taught in “their own mother tongue” – a view supported by numerous UN studies on early childhood education.

Nigeria’s education system is facing serious problems, such as poor-quality teaching, inadequate materials, low pay for teachers and numerous strikes.

Although 85% of children go to primary school, less than half complete their secondary education.

Some 10 million children are out of school in Nigeria, more than in any other country, according to the UN.

Announcing the reversal of the language policy in the capital, Abuja, Dr Alausa pointed to poor academic results from those areas which had adopted mother-tongue teaching.

He cited data from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Examinations Council (Neco), and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (Jamb).

“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 over-subscribed manner,” the minister stated.

The abrupt cancellation of the policy has drawn a mixed response from education specialists, analysts and parents.

Some have hailed the government’s decision, agreeing that the implementation was problematic and contributed to falling standards.

Others, however, believe the policy was abandoned prematurely. They argue that such a significant shift requires substantial investment in teacher training, the development of textbooks and learning materials, and a longer timeframe before it can be fairly judged and begin to bear fruit.

Education expert Dr Aliyu Tilde praised the reversal, saying Nigeria isn’t ready for such a move.