By Alanguburo Jauro
The recent pronouncement by the Honourable Minister of Education at the Language and Inclusion Conference in Abuja, suggesting a ban on the use of local languages or mother tongue in our national education system, has been received with profound dismay and deep concern by education stakeholders across the nation. As an educationist with years of experience in foundational learning in Northern Nigeria, I categorically reject this proposition as not only constitutionally problematic but also pedagogically unsound and a severe regression in our quest for inclusive, quality education.
This rejoinder outlines a robust, evidence-based argument for why mother tongue-based education must not only continue but be strengthened, and why the Minister’s pronouncement must be reconsidered.
1. Constitutional Imperative and the Principle of Federalism: Education in Nigeria is explicitly placed on the Concurrent Legislative List in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This constitutional architecture grants both the Federal and State Governments the authority to legislate on educational matters. A blanket ministerial pronouncement seeking to ban a pedagogical approach nationwide fundamentally disregards this constitutional provision. States, being closer to their people and more aware of their socio-linguistic realities, have the right—and indeed the responsibility—to adopt educational strategies that best suit their learners. Many states, including Kaduna, have already recognized the transformative power of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) and are within their constitutional rights to deploy it to help learners transition effectively to English and other formal languages. Federal policy should guide and support, not unilaterally invalidate, such sub-national initiatives that are achieving proven results.
2. Empirical Evidence from Nigerian Programmes: A Resounding Success: The pronouncement flies in the face of overwhelming factual data from successful interventions across Nigeria, particularly in the North. Programmes that systematically integrate mother tongue instruction are demonstrating remarkable improvements in learning outcomes:
• PLANE/FCDO Foundational Learning (Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa States): This FCDO-funded programme has shown significant gains in literacy and numeracy by employing Hausa as the language of instruction in early grades. It provides a strong bridge to English acquisition, disproving the myth that mother tongue education hinders second language learning.
• Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) in Kaduna, Kano, and Kebbi States: The efficacy of TaRL is magnified when delivered in a language the child understands. By assessing and teaching children at their competency level in their mother tongue, learning gaps are closed more rapidly and effectively.
• Jolly Phonics and Accelerated Methodologies:These methodologies are most effective when anchored in a child’s familiar linguistic framework. The phonological awareness developed in the mother tongue directly transfers to and facilitates learning English phonics.
These are not mere experiments; they are data-driven, scalable models showing that children learn best in a language they understand. To ignore this evidence is to willfully compromise the educational future of millions of Nigerian children.
3. Psychological and Cognitive Foundations: Building Confidence and Identity
Education, especially at the foundational level (Early Childcare to Primary 3), is not merely about content delivery; it is about identity formation and cognitive development. Using a child’s mother tongue:
• Builds Self-Esteem and Confidence: It validates the child’s home culture and identity, making the school an inclusive, not alienating, space. A confident learner is an engaged and resilient learner.
• Strengthens Cognitive Development: Complex concepts in literacy, numeracy, and science are best internalized in a familiar language. This creates a solid cognitive foundation upon which additional languages can be built without sacrificing conceptual understanding.
• Promotes Parental and Community Involvement:Education in the local language breaks down barriers between the school and the community, enabling parents—even those not literate in English—to participate in their children’s learning journey.
4. Global Precedents: Lessons from World Leaders in Education
A look at successful educational systems globally reveals that Nigeria’s proposed path is an anomaly among progressive nations:
• India: The National Education Policy (NEP) strongly advocates for mother tongue/local language as the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, and preferably till Grade 8. States like Karnataka and Kerala have long implemented this with stellar results in both regional language proficiency and English competence.
• China: While Mandarin is the national language, education for ethnic minorities is extensively conducted in their mother tongues (e.g., Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian) in the early years, with Mandarin introduced as a second language. This protects linguistic heritage while fostering national integration.
• Finland, Japan, South Korea, and Germany:These top-performing education systems universally teach children in their national/local languages. They master complex global concepts in their mother tongue first, and this deep understanding translates into superior performance when they later learn English or other foreign languages as subjects.
These nations understand that proficiency in a global language is not achieved by sacrificing the mother tongue, but by building upon a strong foundation in it.
CONCLUSION AND CALL TO ACTION: The Minister’s pronouncement is a step backwards, contradicting constitutional logic, empirical evidence, pedagogical best practice, and global trends. Rather than banning mother tongue, our national policy should be focused on:
1. Developing Robust Frameworks: Creating standardised orthographies and curricula for major Nigerian languages.
2. Investing in Teacher Training: Massively scaling up the training of teachers to deliver effective MTB-MLE.
3. Providing Resources: Developing and distributing high-quality teaching and learning materials in local languages 9including for learners with disabilities).
4. Supporting State-Led Initiatives: Encouraging and funding states to implement/scale-upevidence-based multilingual education models suited to their contexts.
I, therefore, call on the Honourable Minister to retract this pronouncement and initiate a genuine, inclusive dialogue with state governments, linguists, pedagogy experts, and civil society. Let us build an education system that is truly Nigerian—one that draws strength from our rich linguistic diversity to unlock the potential of every child, from Kaduna to Calabar, from Sokoto to Port Harcourt.
Our children’s future, and indeed the future cohesiveness and productivity of our nation, depends on this.
Mr. Alanguburo Jauro, an Educationist and Advocate for Foundational Learning wrote in from Kaduna