The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has announced that the Federal Government has abolished the National Language Policy, citing concerns that it failed to promote literacy and numeracy in several parts of the country.
Dr. Alausa made this known in Abuja during the opening of the International Conference on Language in Education. He explained that the decision to cancel the policy was reached at the last National Council on Education meeting after reviewing data that highlighted its negative effects in certain regions where it was over-implemented.
According to him, “The use of the mother tongue had done more harm than good as students from some zones of the country could hardly read or write in English.” He added that due to the critical role of language in comprehension, the National Language Policy was cancelled to allow for a unified language of instruction in schools across Nigeria.
“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. This is about evidence-based governance. English now stands as the medium of instruction from pre-primary, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and up to the tertiary education level,” Dr. Alausa stated.
The Minister commended the British Council for its continuous dialogue and partnership with Nigeria to improve education quality and support teacher training.
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmed, also spoke on the government’s focus on improving foundational learning. She said, “Now we are designing a training package for teachers that focuses on the learning of literacy and numeracy. This is specifically for teachers who handle 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.”
The Country Director of the British Council in Nigeria, Donna McGowan, reaffirmed the organization’s support for Nigeria’s educational reforms. “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,” she said.
The International Conference on Language in Education, organized by the British Council in collaboration with other partners, gathered education stakeholders from across Africa to share experiences and assess progress in language use in education.
