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Mother Tongue Education Policy in Nigeria
Education in Nigeria is divided into a tripartite system comprising primary, senior secondary, and tertiary education. Generally overseen by the Federal Ministry of Education, it is administered by local governments at the primary level. Secondary and tertiary education is managed by federal and state governments, typically involving the collaboration of private stakeholders.

Despite flaws within the federal system, such governance has been regarded as a necessity in Nigeria’s multilingual, multi-ethnic and multicultural climate. Ongoing efforts to promote greater unity among a linguistically diverse set of people can be perceived through various policies, including educational ones, given the developmental role education plays in reproducing social and cultural capital.

The National Policy on Education in Nigeria (NPE) originally published in 1977,(revised 2014) provides a legislative framework to encourage the delivery of comprehensive education in an endeavor to increase national cohesion, and promote even development- especially across public and private schools. Specifically, the policy’s multilingual provisions, which stipulate that the language of the immediate environment or mother tongue shall serve as the medium of instruction during a child’s primary school years- has received widespread attention. Proponents of the mother tongue education policy highlight its pedagogical advantages, perceiving it as a crucial tool in increasing Nigeria’s low literacy and school attendance rates. However, aside from shortcomings in educational infrastructure, public fears concerning the dominance of major languages over minor ones continue to hinder the effective implementation of the multilingual strategy. Such tensions point towards a broader concept that lies at the core of pedagogic theory: how language instruction policies interact with politics, power, and development.

History
Nigeria’s educational policy has been inevitably moulded by the country’s complex historical and political situation. Prior to British conquest during the mid-19th century, Northern and Western parts of the country were principally divided into Muslim empires and kingdoms, whilst Southern and Central areas comprised smaller, ethnically diverse chiefdoms and autonomous communities. This religious diversity necessarily impacted educational systems, with Qur’anic education policies dominating northern Nigeria. When Christian missionaries reached Nigeria in 1842, Quranic schools dominated northern parts of the country, creating religious and educational disparities, such as mistrust in non-conformist curricula and variations in the implementation of educational policies.

Nigeria's diverse religious and ethnological landscape is precisely what inspired Britain to intervene in the country's education system, in an attempt to deliver education along a more united front. Despite the amalgamation of northern and southern protectorates in 1914, Nigeria's education system remained inconsistent, and it was not until 1927 that the British Advisory Committee on native education stipulated the use of indigenous languages as instruction media, laying the foundations for the National Policy on Education (NPE), initially published in 1976. Though the policy has undergone various revisions over the years, it continues to play an important role in Nigerian education, especially considering recent recognition of the significance of mother tongue in enhancing comprehension, facilitating academic performance and encouraging pedagogical advancement.

Pre-Independence
When Christian missionaries reached southern Nigeria in 1842, educational tactics differed according to ethnicity. Yet it was as early as the 1840s that concerns about mother tongue education emerged, especially since it was in the interest of Christian missionaries to propagate Christianity across the country. The codification of a mother-tongue education policy, however, did not occur until 1919, when the Phelps-Stokes Commission recommended the use of local languages within primary school education. This attempt to integrate indigeneity within the educational curriculum was later upheld in 1927 by the British Advisory Committee on native education in Africa. Despite this, education access across northern, southern, rural, and urban parts of Nigeria remained uneven and in 1948, amidst a period of ethnic tensions, the Educational Ordinance was enacted to facilitate education administration through decentralization, becoming the first legislation with national coverage. Following the decentralization of political decision-making powers, a series of educational acts, predicated on the Education Act of England and Wales 1944, were enacted across Nigeria in 1955, 1956 and 1957 to promote universal primary education (UPE) and consequently educational and financial opportunities for the Nigerian population.On the whole, Nigeria’s colonial period, lasting from approximately 1944-1960 saw the decentralization of colonial Nigeria following an increased need for self-determination and educational expansion. Nevertheless, rising tensions among different ethnic groups and an increasing influence from northern parts of Nigeria called for imminent political reform.

Post-Independence
Following its independence from British rule in October 1960, Nigeria's continued attempt to craft a workable political environment became increasingly apparent in its policy-making. Indeed, whilst pre-independence policies saw the establishment of universal primary education, restructuring the educational landscape to create the manpower required to boost Nigeria's economic development became the primary focus of post-independent policy. Nevertheless, the remnants of colonialism, highlighted by increased ethnic conflict, did not set the country up for success in effectively reducing the impact of shortcomings within the Nigerian education system, such as inequalities concerning access to education and high dropout rates in schools. Hence, in 1977, following an oil boom and the expansion of federal states, Universal Primary Education (UPE) was made free through the National Policy on Education (NPE), which was geared towards fighting the rising levels of illiteracy among children aged 6 to 12 years old. The NPE played a particularly important role in attempting to bridge rural-urban and interstate inequities in education, laying the foundations for Nigerian integration. It also introduced the 6-3-3-4 schooling system, predicated on American education and made UPE compulsory. These were perceived as key mechanisms to enhance enrollment and longer-term engagement with education, further contributing to economic development.

Motivations for Mother Tongue Policy
Sadly, free UPE was terminated in 1981, due to an oil glut, which caused a national drop in revenue, significantly limiting the budget for investments in education infrastructure. Some scholars have observed that this economic setback resulted in unpaid teacher salaries, reduced primary enrollment and declining literacy rates across the country. However, the 1980s marked a period of increased recognition of the pedagogical importance of mother-tongue education in child development by various education stakeholders and social experiments- such as the Ife six years primary project - promptly encouraging the revision of the NPE to encompass mother tongue instruction in early education:

""the medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the language of the environment for the first three years" (NPE 2004, Section 4, Paragraph 19 (e)

Specifically, native tongue instruction in Nigeria was perceived as a solution to the "at-home" vs "at-school" learning gap: the poor literacy and comprehension rate created by a failure to teach pupils in their home language. This dilemma is the cause of a national language hierarchy, in which the dominance of one language over another, results in a discrepancy between communication both within and outside of the domestic context. Some scholars have pointed towards the hereditary value of the "language of the immediate environment" as a crucial reason for integrating it into school curricula. They deem that since native languages act as media in which "custom is transmitted...and filial ties are laid" (Taiwo cited in Eruchalu, 2008, p. 183), they may serve to consolidate cultural identity, which, in a multi-ethnic country such as Nigeria, could arguably promote a greater sense of national unity. Indeed, one of the key motives of the NPE was- and has been- to use language as a means of promoting national cohesion within Nigerian borders.

The National Policy on Education was implemented during a particularly revolutionary period for educational pedagogical thought across the globe. For instance, in 1974, the case of Lau vs Nichols drew attention to the importance of "overcoming the educational disadvantages resulting from a home-school language mismatch". Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky's theory of language, which posits that children are endowed with a natural capacity to learn and understand language quickly from a young age, can be said to have inspired the policy's particular focus on utilizing the "language of immediate environment for the first three years" in primary teaching. Abijo (2014) summarizes this approach in the Nigerian context by noting that: "if the Nigerian child is to be encouraged... to develop curiosity, manipulative ability...and manual dexterity, he/she should acquire these skills and attributes through the mother tongue as a medium of instruction which is the most natural way of education". Olagbaju and Akinosun (2014) have also asserted that mother tongue instruction in early education is crucial, since the native tongue represents a large part of the child’s environment, possessing the names of concepts, objects, actions etc.

Key Debates
The multilingual challenge

Broadly outlined, the Mother Tongue Education (MTE) policy comprises of two major provisions. The first entails the use of one of the main Nigerian indigenous languages as media of instruction in (pre) primary education: Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. Additionally, it suggests utilizing the language of the immediate community as an instruction medium. The second provision lays down the requirement to switch to English instruction during later stages of primary education. Though the MTE policy has been perceived as preserving cultural norms, these provisions have attracted much debate from linguists, educational researchers, and civil society. Some oppose the policy on the grounds that in a multi-ethnic country, where over 500 languages are spoken, main language instruction risks subjugating minority tongues and cultures. Simply put, contributors to the debate suggest policy is a "political design intended to propagate the major languages at the expense of the minor ones" (Akkinaso 1991 p90).

For some, Nigeria’s multiplicity of language also presents a practical problem when it comes to the implementation of the MTE, since, in areas where various languages are spoken by children who attend local schools, defining the 'language of immediate environment' may prove particularly difficult. This could reinforce common fears concerning the subjugation of indigenous customs, cultures and languages. Furthermore, the lack of a common means of communication amongst Nigerian people, engendered by its plurilingual landscape often results in the dominance of English language across different curricula and levels of education. Similarly, though the use of English has been perceived by some critics as disrupting Nigerian education, studies have shown that there is generally a public preference for the use of English in Nigerian schools , given its facilitative capacity, widespread use within Nigerian society and societal norms which associate the English language with higher opportunities and status. According to Odebunmi (2005), for example, English is "institutionally the only means open to individuals from different ethnic and linguistic groups for interaction."

Poor Curriculum

Despite efforts to integrate mother tongue education into Nigerian curricula, evidence suggests that the implementation of the MTE remains skewed, such that most children are taught to read and write in English, rather than in their native tongue, as stipulated. This discrepancy between policy and practice illustrates, for many, poor curriculum implementation- something which studies have suggested contributes largely to the low literacy rates across Nigeria. According to the 2015 Nigeria Education Data Survey, only 44 per cent of public primary school students can read in one of the three main languages or English. One of the leading factors for this is poor policy planning, which in turn leads to poor policy formation and ineffective implementation, as highlighted by Okeke et al (1985). Studies have criticized attempts to implement the MTE, on the basis that the Nigerian Federal Government failed to consider the need to develop more educational resources across the country, as well as indigenous orthographies, before embarking on achieving multilingual education nationally. For critics, the consideration of native orthographies in policy planning is crucial to ensure the effective transmission of knowledge through education. In the context of passing on scientific knowledge for instance, some scholars posit that literacy education could be jeopardized because "Nigerian languages are not, for the moment, rich enough to accommodate the vast complexity of theoretical formulations in modern science" (Godwin Sogolo The Guardian, May 14, 1990, p. 13 cited in Akinnaso 2006 P99). Additionally, the lack of native orthographies means that textbook availability in mother tongue is very limited, reducing the scope within which the potential advantages of mother tongue education can be achieved.

Teacher Quality and Teaching Materials Another key challenge of MTE implementation according to critics has been a shortage of competent teachers in the different indigenous languages, as well as the lack of teachers in general. Following the conduction of the 2021 National Personnel Audit on public and private education in the country, data suggests that Nigeria has a shortage of roughly 277,500 teachers at the basic level of education. It is argued that there is a reluctance among teachers to put the MTE into practice because it potentially impedes teacher mobility, limiting primary teachers who cannot speak any Nigerian language besides there native tongue, to a particular area .Moreover, there is the issue that many school teachers are unable to read or write in their native tongue in the first instance, due to the lack of educational funding and available educational resources. According to a 2013 study in the Kaduna state, 1,300 out of 1,599 teachers scored below 25% in basic literacy and mathematics primary level tests. The inter-dependency between quality education provision and quality teaching has been summarized by the Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State: “Teacher quality dictates the success of any educational pursuit…and no nation rises above the quality of its teachers”.

Conventional Views on Education

Despite evidence to suggest that student comprehension is enhanced by indigenous language instruction in Nigeria, research into social conventions highlights a public preference for English language instruction across the board , amongst pupils and parents. Chimuzie (1973 p 215) summarizes Nigerian attitudes towards English language:

"its mastery is so valued that it is...equated with erudition by most Nigerians-illiterate, semi-literate, and literate alike. It is apparently its equation with learning, its economic utility, and the people's seemingly natural desire for proficiency in a "foreign" tongue which could explain the enthusiasm and anxiety that characterize the study of English at all levels of education in Nigeria."

The implications for associating English language with erudition has meant that parents are generally reluctant to enrol their children in schools which adopt mother tongue instruction, as this is at variance with parent's desire for their children to adopt English as their first language. Data also suggests that there is a discrepancy in mother tongue instruction differ across urban and rural areas because of a change in attitude regarding schooling. For instance, on average, mother tongue content in primary schools within rural areas was found to be 93.6%. Yet, in urban schools, mother tongue content only consists of 61.8% of the curriculum in primary education. This urban rural gap could be said to reinforce the pre-existing educational inequality in Nigeria.

Topic Paragraph and Structure - Language in Nigerian Education Policy: Implementation and Key Debates

Although there is some coverage of Education in Nigeria on Wikipedia already, such articles merely focus on the structure of the educational framework in Nigeria. There is little mention of the historical roots and current practices of language policy in education. Hence, my article will focus especially on educational policymaking in Nigeria regarding language; the implications of this, and its historical roots. For example, though English is the principal medium of instruction in Nigeria, in 2004, the National Policy on Education was passed, stipulating the use of indigenous local languages during early education. Yet many studies have shown that there are discrepancies in the application of this policy across the country- one of the key challenges being Nigeria’s largely diverse linguistic background. With a focus on the NPE and some of the articles I have read concerning the importance of bilingual education (Cummins 2004), I intend to focus on how multilingualism in schools has been addressed so far, how this contributes to education in terms of child development, other opportunities and national sustainable development, such as increasing literacy rates. I intend to structure the article in the following order: A) Description of the role of colonialism and colonial history in shaping Nigerian education and the effects this has had on the language. Outline how the NPE is based on British colonial policy from 1927 (British Advisory Committee) which recommended the use of indigenous languages in education. B) Describe how the implementation of NPE in schools and motivations to pass it such as the fact that children were/are not always capable of developing ideas into English because of the at-home vs at-school language gap. Mention other policies which have been discussed or implemented. Ambiguous policy? C) Outline the structure of education: primary, secondary and tertiary in regard to language policy. How does teaching differ across the different levels of education? What are the attitudes which guide teaching at these different levels? D) Limitations of language policy: parents' views on mother tongue instruction, material provision for mother-tongue instruction, and teacher training/provision.

Annotated Bibliography


 * 1) Cummins, J. (2000). Language Interactions in the classroom: From coercive to collaborative relations and power. In: Language, Power and Pedagogy – Bilingual children in the crossfire.. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. 31-52. This chapter's principal tenet holds that mother-tongue instruction consolidates student identities, enhances their psycho-linguistic capabilities and academic development. More specifically, Cummins suggests that sufficient data exists to allow policy-makers to predict the effects of bilingual programs on students from various socioeconomic backgrounds, encouraging the development of linguistic educational policies. The author uses evidence from various studies and legislature to substantiate such claims, whilst recognizing that bilingual education alone does not guarantee cross-linguistic transfer. The key limitation of this piece, in regard to my work, is that it does not focus on the Nigerian context. Every nation will inevitably be shaped by different historical, sociological, and political factors which impact the educational sector and policy-making. Regardless, Cummins provides an interesting analysis of the relationship between identity, language and development and lucidly highlights the different opinions underpinning or opposing bilingual programs.
 * 2) Ozoemena, A., Ngwoke, F. & Nwokolo, B. (2021). Prospects of Mother Tongue as a Medium of Instruction in Nigerian Primary Level Education. English Language Teaching. 14 (4), 1-10. This article's main focus is to highlight the pros and cons of Mother Tongue Education (MTE) as stipulated in the Nigerian Policy on Education, drawing upon a mixture of scholarly articles and research findings, such as the Ife six-year primary project, for substantiation. The authors employ Vygotsky's sociocultural method, which highlights the importance of a knowledgeable teacher in shaping a child's linguistic development, to illustrate the motivations behind the implementation of the MTE policy. One of the key limitations of this text is the narrow scope of the research data used to analyse the effectiveness of the policy. Nevertheless, it provides a clear illustration of the socioeconomic and psycho-linguistic advantages, as well as the complications, concerning the policy.
 * 3) Akinnaso, N, F. (2006). On the Mother Tongue Education Policy in Nigeria. Educational Review. 43 (1), 89-106. Akkinaso's principal claim is that the MTE policy in Nigeria unearths a struggle that is characteristic of ex-colonial nation-states: the need to fight against colonialism and simultaneously, against the dominance of one ethnic group over another. For the author, this is encapsulated by the potential for Mother Tongue Education to be used as a tool of resistance against linguistic colonialism, whilst the dominance of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo threatens to subjugate other indigenous languages. Drawing upon evidence from research findings and public opinion to trace the policy's historical roots, Akkinaso explores the concepts of linguistic pluralism and linguistic assimilation to underline how conflicting ideologies within Nigeria impact the enactment of educational initiatives, such as the MTE policy. The sole weakness of this paper is that it is a little repetitive in explaining the criticisms of the MTE policy. However, I have learned how successful implementation of the Nigerian Policy on Education, (NPE) which encompasses the MTE, depends on the development of orthographies in Nigerian languages, increased investment to adapt educational resources and a specific rephrasing of the policy.
 * 4) Ibrahim, J and Gwandu, S. (2016). Language Policy on Education in Nigeria: Challenges of Multilingual Education and Future of English Language. American Research Journal of English and Literature. 2 (-), 1-10. This research pinpoints the significant role English plays in multilingual Nigeria and how this has fostered a certain reluctance to implement the provisions on multilingual education outlined in the National Policy on Education (NPE), which could undermine the survival of indigenous languages in the country.  This is backed up by data obtained from the research undertaken in various primary schools within the Zamfara state, which encourages the implementation of policies such as the MTE. Ibrahim and Gwandu especially focus on linguistic hierarchy as a key concept to explore the ways in which English has become the language of officialdom in Nigeria. Data validity could be ameliorated had the research been conducted across a wider range of geographical locations, but this remains a crucial text to explaining the complexities of Nigeria's educational and linguistic landscape.
 * 5) Olanibi, S. Dahiru, W. and Balogun, K. (2021). Mother-Tongue as an Instructional Medium in Nigerian Lower Primary Schools: Prospects and Challenges. Journal of Research & Method in Education. 11 (3), 40-45. This article highlights and analyses the merits and demerits of employing mother tongue as an instructional medium, using scholarly articles and research, including the 6-year Ife Primary Project, to substantiate such claims. The paper reviews available research on the topic to highlight the wide variety of opinions on the MTE policy within Nigerian society. To outline the motivations underpinning the MTE, the authors concentrate on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, which holds that a child's learning occurs significantly through socio-cultural interaction with a skilled tutor, such as a more knowledgeable peer, parent and/or teacher. This helps support the notion that the MTE facilitates educational development. One of the key limitations of this text is its major dependency on scholarly articles for evidence. The use of a wider range of research data could provide a more factual basis for the claims made in this article. This source is particularly useful for an understanding of the wider sociopolitical and socioeconomic advantages for introducing mother tongue or local language as instructional media within Nigerian primary schools.
 * 6) Imam, H.. (2012). Educational Policy in Nigeria from the Colonial Era to the Post-Independence Period. Italian Journal Of Sociology Of Education 1 (-), 1-10. Imam observes the importance of social, political and historical factors in shaping educational policies in Nigeria over the past few decades, with a particular focus on how Nigeria's vast colonial and religious history has generated differences in educational infrastructure between northern and southern parts of the nation. The author uses the Nigerian Policy on Education (NPE) and its many revisions to illustrate this and an ongoing need for educational policies to adapt to particular Nigerian sociopolitical contexts. Key notions include British colonialism and missionary education, since these trace back the origins and evolution of the NPE. The article could have gone into more detail concerning the impact education has on development. I learned that historical processes led to the creation of three federal regions which possess the power to make their own policies and laws, which helps explicate the discrepancies in the employment of the NPE.
 * 7) NERDC. (2014). National Policy on Education. Available: https://education.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/NATIONAL-POLICY-ON-EDUCATION.pdf . Last accessed 28/04/2022.  Stipulates educational reform at pre-primary, primary, intermediary and higher education levels, recognising the importance of education in engendering social and economic change. The goal is to improve education quality across country and hence development. A key weakness of the policy is that it is predicated on the notion of unity and African solidarity but in the context of such an ethnically diverse and multilingual nation, this could appear idealistic.