Primary School

By Maryam Augie-Abdulmumin

With the approval of the National Language Policy by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), instruction in primary schools within Nigeria will now be done in the mother tongue. As with every other issue of importance in this country, the policy was greeted with passionate arguments, both for and against. The Government’s decision to promote language learning for greater learning outcomes has been in the making for many years, especially at the lower primary levels. The Federal Government may have officially made it compulsory for the primary mode of instruction to be in the mother tongue. However, this policy has been in practice in most remote communities, especially in the North.

Whilst some arguments against the idea (which we shall review shortly) were valid, it is worth considering the fact that Nigeria is currently facing what is akin to an education emergency. In this regard, whatever little effort is made, especially at the policy level, should be greeted with some positivity whilst exploring ways to augment the effort in the non-governmental and private sectors.

Having said that, it is equally important we explore reasons why this policy might not work. This is because it is only when we clearly understand the hurdles ahead that we will be sufficiently prepared to effectively nurture the policy seed that the Federal Government has planted. Below are three strong reasons advanced against the policy:

The Financial Implication of Educating Children From 500 different ethnic groups.

Without mincing words, I agree with those who say it is unrealistic and unachievable to educate children from over 500 ethnic groups. This is especially true considering that education has always been at the low end of budgetary allocations. Let’s face it, the current economic profile of the nation does not look promising for a radical overhaul of this nature. However, in order to take advantage of this policy and benefit from what technologically advanced countries like China, Germany, and Russia have benefited from for many years, we can start with the low-hanging fruits. By this, I mean let’s start with the three dominant languages – Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.

These languages already have advanced international media backing (BBC Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, for instance) and a copious body of knowledge accessible through search engines like Google. There is a possibility of easily scaling beyond the three languages by leveraging the data and lessons learnt at this phase of the implementation.

The dearth of Qualified Teachers and Instructional Materials

Closely related to funding is the challenge of the dearth of teachers and the availability of adequate instructional materials to implement such a grand overhaul. The truth is even the current system is grappling with the same challenges, so it is an open secret that any change will mean more challenges. However, with what is available through scientific research on the benefits of children receiving instructions through their local languages, it is clear that it is only a matter of time before this issue becomes the front burner of national discourse. And although we don’t have it all figured out, we have to start with what is available. The NCE curriculum makes provision for every college of education in the Federation to have departments of Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba and some provision for the language of the immediate community.

Community ownership, NGO, and private sector support will go a long way in ensuring effective implementation. It is also important to note that whilst the Federal Government makes policies, the responsibility of implementing basic education lies with State Governments. Thus, the onus of ensuring this success will vary from state to state. If, for example, northern governors believe this policy will serve their interest most, they should do everything within their powers to ensure the success of this policy at the state and regional levels. The same may not be a priority for the southern region. What is significant here is how we make this policy work in the best interest of Nigeria’s peace and prosperity.

Favouritism and the Challenge to the Fragile Peace in Nigeria

Viewed from the historical context of education in Nigeria, it is obvious that English is more accessible, learnt and understood in the southern part of Nigeria than in the dominantly Hausa-speaking North, where the region has always relied on the Hausa language for the mass dissemination of information. In such a situation, it is obvious that a policy of this nature will find more fertile ground in the north compared to other regions of the country. But let’s face it, the earlier we speed up access to quality education through whatever medium possible, the better for our country’s peace and prosperity.

The data available on the out-of-school population in Nigeria is disproportionately in the north, and the earlier we bridge this gap, the better for our developmental outcome. In the final analysis, this policy might actually make it more cost-effective and efficient to educate a Nigerian child than the current western-based model.

In conclusion, whilst a radical policy of this nature is bound to be confronted with many obstacles, research and comparative curricular studies have proven that our nation gains from a policy favouring our local languages over foreign languages.

It is true that the English language gives us a platform to compete globally, but the spice is in what is truly ours, our local languages, which tell the stories of history and survival. Let’s not forget that nobody says our own languages cannot gain global dominance under the right circumstances, and it all begins with the curriculum.

Mrs Maryam Augie-Abdulmumin is the Founder and  Executive Director of Illmi Children’s Fund. She can be reached via: info@illmichildrensfund.org.

By Aliyu Muhammad Aliyu

We often ask ourselves the question, “why do we lack reading culture in our contemporary society?” The answers we get are associated with our background and perspective on the issue. To a teacher, knowledge of all fields and disciplines is documented mainly in writing. We explore and acquire it by reading relevant resource materials of our interest for their information. We read enough literature persistently to acquire what is sufficient to be knowledgeable through either the education process or self-learning. To read and continue reading, the reading itself has to be easy, attractive and exciting to the reader. In this way, it becomes second nature and a hobby unwitting.

As a common saying, “the beginning of everything is the most important.” When a child learns how to read and comprehend the information, write what is understood by their readers, and express themselves verbally, effective communication skills manifest, hence reading culture and knowledge acquisition. This marks the beginning of intellectual independence achievable only through standard, sound and comprehensive primary education.

Children are taught to be literate in primary schools; they familiarize themselves with alphabets and numerals, words recognition, pronunciation, formation of sentence and paragraph and finally, the whole passage comprehension and composition in mother tongue and lingua franca. Reading begins by reading adventure stories in which the heroes get into difficulties. Then, using the suspense technique, the readers’ interest is held until they find how the heroes escape in the end. This boosts readers’ imagination and interests, which results in reading more stories searching for ways to be heroes themselves. With age, the readers grow older and develop an interest in how people think, talk, feel and handle situations and circumstances. That makes them critical in their thoughts and figuring out how to solve their problems through someone’s experience put in writing.

A society that adopts a reading culture will produce vibrant youth of revolutionary character that will be satisfied only with the best from anyone in all circumstances. On the contrary, anything one does with difficulty, the interest in that particular issue gradually fades away until one loses it completely, more so on the reading activity as energy and time consuming are immense. Those who are incapable of reading a quarter of the minimum words expected per minute of an average reader will certainly lose interest in reading since they are expending what isn’t worth it when they can use the same amount of effort that bear fruit in other activities comfortably. They have to abandon reading and then lose all its life-changing attributes.

The cascade of events that lead to poor reading culture begins with poor primary school back and forth. Pupils attend poor primary schools and leave without learning anything substantial. They move to secondary school still without learning much because of a lack of foundation to support the lessons taught. Somehow, they manage to pass the final exams by exam malpractice or otherwise. They get admissions to higher schools of learning and can sail through in different ways. Some do that by cheating, and others with great difficulty of mere rote learning due to inefficient lecturers that are probably victims of poor primary education or lazy in evaluating their students’ performances.

The poor products are the so-called qualified teachers that are given the available teaching job in primary school to continue the vicious cycle. It is common knowledge that one learns much less than one is taught. So, this indicates that a negligible amount of knowledge and motivation is to be learnt from incompetent teachers. Moreover, this results in the decline of knowledge in every generation.

The only way to correct this existing problem and prevent its future occurrence is to recruit enough competent primary school teachers. They should also be given sufficient orientation training that focuses on what they are to teach according to the syllabus and continuously retrain all existing teachers. Furthermore, educated parents and guardians are to monitor the ability of their children’s literacy and numeracy by themselves to ensure their performance since results are faked by teachers, especially those private schools to mislead parents.

Primary school leavers taught by competent primary school teachers don’t need to spend a dime on them in private secondary schools because they’re well equipped to muddle through and even be among the best in the current unsound state of public schools. A qualitative primary education that leads to unlimited reading culture and curiosity is what the first-generation students and their successors got and proved to be highly knowledgeable in virtually all fields of learning despite their lower certificates. Contrary to what is currently obtainable with those with all the degrees but never fails to hide their ignorance of general knowledge and simple basics that were not obtainable right from primary school.

To fix a society, fix education. To fix education, fix primary education, as simple as it sounds.

Aliyu Muhammad Aliyu wrote from Kano via amabaffa@yahoo.com.

By Sumayyah Auwal Usman

The Kaduna State Government says it will conduct another competency test for all public primary school teachers across the 23 Local Government Areas in the state.

The State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Permanent Member, Human Resource Management, Christy Alademerin, announced this through a memo to the Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs) in the state.

It will be recalled that the state government had in September 2017 conducted a similar test for the over 30,000 primary school teachers in the state, following which 21,780 who failed to obtain 70% pass mark were sacked and replaced with newly recruited 25,000 teachers.

The date for the competency test has not been slated, but LGEA’s were urged to sensitise teachers in their local governments about the forthcoming exercise.