🏫 "Teachers are Igbo, Students are Yoruba": Education Minister Explains Why Mother Tongue Policy Was Scrapped!

 

🏫 "Teachers are Igbo, Students are Yoruba": Education Minister Explains Why Mother Tongue Policy Was Scrapped!

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Minister of Education Tunji Alausa has sparked a nationwide debate on linguistic reality versus policy, revealing why the Federal Government ditched the plan to force local languages into primary classrooms.

In a revealing interview with The Punch, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, pulled back the curtain on the logistical nightmare of implementing a "Mother Tongue" policy in a country as diverse as Nigeria.

The policy—which originally required primary school children to be taught in their native languages from Primary 1 to 4—was officially scrapped because it was creating more inequality than education.

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🏙️ The Surulere Paradox

To illustrate the complexity, the Minister pointed to the heart of Lagos, describing a mismatch between the linguistic backgrounds of students and their instructors.

“Go to Surulere, half of the students there are Yoruba. But most of their teachers are Igbo. So, where is the mother tongue?” Alausa questioned.

He argued that in melting pots like Ajegunle and Surulere, a uniform local language policy is impossible. You might have an Igbo-speaking child being taught by a Yoruba teacher, or vice-versa, making the "Mother Tongue" campaign inapplicable in real-world classrooms.

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🗺️ 650 Dialects vs. Practical Learning

Minister Alausa highlighted that while countries like China (Chinese) or India (Hindi) can unify under one or two major languages, Nigeria’s 650 distinct mother tongues make a national mandate an expensive logistical failure.

• The Inequality Gap: Pushing a local language policy where teachers don't speak the dialect creates an unfair disadvantage for students.

• Geopolitical Reality: Four out of six zones in Nigeria are already using English as the main language because it remains the only neutral ground.¹

The high cost of translating materials into hundreds of dialects and the logistical strain of re-assigning teachers based on language forced the government to pivot back to English-centric instruction to ensure equality.

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❓ WHAT'S YOUR TAKE?

Is the Minister right to scrap the policy based on our diverse reality, or are we losing our cultural identity by not forcing local languages into schools? Should a Yoruba child be taught by an Igbo teacher in English, or should we hire teachers based on language? Join the discussion! 👇🇳🇬📖

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