Nigeria promotes teaching local languages rather than English

Nigeria has announced the “National Language Policy” which aims to promote the teaching of primary school pupils in local languages rather than in English.

Nigerian Education Minister Adamu Adamu told reporters on Wednesday (November 30th) that the new framework has been approved for implementation under the “National Language Policy”.

English, the official language of Nigeria, is taught as the language of instruction at all levels of education.

However, the education minister says that “students learn much better when taught in their mother tongue.”

The education minister said it would be challenging to implement the new policy because it would take a lot of work to prepare learning materials and recruit teachers.

Another challenge is that there are more than 600 local languages spoken in Nigeria.

It is not yet clear when the government will begin implementing the new system.