A proposal to encourage the teaching of local languages to elementary school students rather than English has been unveiled by Nigeria.
According to Education Minister Adamu Adamu, the National Language Policy, a new framework, has been given the go-ahead to be put into effect (November 30).
According to the new policy, the first six years of elementary school instruction will be held in the student’s mother tongue.
Nigeria’s official language is English, which is also the language of instruction at all educational institutions.
However, the education minister says “pupils learn much better” when they are taught in their own mother tongue.
The education minister admitted that it would be difficult to put the new policy into practice since it would “take a lot of work to design materials to educate and get the teachers.”
The fact that Nigerians speak more than 600 different languages presents another difficulty.
When the government will begin adopting the new system is not yet known.
