Nigeria will launch a policy to encourage the teaching of local languages to primary school students rather than English.
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu informed journalists on Wednesday that the National Language Policy, a new framework, has been given the go-ahead for execution on November 30th 2022.
The first six years of primary school education under the new policy will be taught in the mother tongue.
The minister believes that when students are taught in their native tongues, "they learn considerably better.” This has to an extent been proven true, but there are some problems.
The education minister admitted that it would be difficult to put the new policy into practice since it would “require a lot of work to develop materials to teach and get the teachers”.
Plus, some subjects can't be taught in English, and how do you teach a child who knows only English subjects in another language?
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.