The Federal Government of Nigeria has scrapped the national policy mandating the use of indigenous languages as the medium of instruction in Nigerian schools.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, who made this known at the 2025 Language in Education International Conference, organised by the British Council in Abuja, said that the cancellation was approved at the 69th meeting of the National Council on Education, held in Akure, Ondo State, from November 3 to 7.
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The policy, approved in 2022 as the National Language Policy, stipulated that children from Early Childhood Education to Primary Six should be taught in their mother tongue or the language of the immediate community.
But the minister regretted: “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 the mother tongue in an oversubscribed manner.
“This is about evidence-based governance. English now stands as the medium of instruction from pre-primary, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and tertiary education.
“Using the mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions. We have to talk about evidence, not emotions.”
Over the years, there have been calls for Nigeria to adopt the use of indigenous languages as a method of teaching in schools, claiming it will make students understand better.
In countries like China and Russia, indigenous languages are often used to teach students.