Abia State Governor Alex Otti has called on educational stakeholders to embrace the mother tongue as the primary language of instruction in early childhood education, describing fears surrounding its implementation as ‘exaggerated at best.’
Governor Otti made the assertion on Wednesday in Lagos while delivering an address at the 24th Annual Lecture/Symposium of the Fafunwa Educational Foundation (FEF) and the 19th Annual Post-Doctoral Awards in Education.
Speaking on this year’s theme, ‘What Does The Research Say?: Mother Tongue Instruction And The Future Of Early Education In Nigeria,’ Otti, who chaired the event, urged policymakers to look past individual biases and confront the practical limitations of the policy rather than rejecting it outright.
‘If research says that early learners do better when instructions are passed through the vehicle of indigenous languages, my preference would be to identify and address the probable limitations to teaching pupils in their native languages,’ Otti stated.
The Governor highlighted the global success of countries like China, India and South Korea, where foundational education is driven by native languages, noting that their indigenous systems have directly shaped their economic and technological breakthroughs on the global stage.
‘If children and professionals in China suffer no disadvantage from learning in Mandarin, just like their counterparts in India or South Korea who started their learning in indigenous languages, then the fears against the use of indigenous languages for early-stage education in this part of the world may be exaggerated,’ he argued.
Otti praised the foresight of the late Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa – Nigeria’s first professor of education and former Minister of Education – whose pioneering research decades ago demonstrated that children learn more effectively when taught in their mother tongue.
While acknowledging real challenges to the system, such as a shortage of skilled bilingual instructors and regional limitations, the Governor expressed optimism that the insights from the symposium would transcend intellectual debate and actively guide national policy decisions.
Other speakers at the event, including Prof Francis Egbokhare of the University of Ibadan and Prof Angelina Kioko of the United States International University-Africa, Kenya, also underscored the great impact the use of mother tongues would have on early childhood education.
The Federal Government recently banned mother tongue instruction, citing an ostensible decline in student academic performance. However, conference participants sharply disputed this claim.
They noted that the Nigerian Academy of Education has explicitly denied the existence of any empirical evidence linking native-language instruction to poor academic results.
Instead, stakeholders argued that the policy’s past failures resulted from weak, half-hearted implementation, chronic underfunding, insufficient teacher training and a lack of instructional materials.
Prof Egbokhare, a keynote speaker, specifically argued that Nigeria’s persistent learning crisis stems directly from a fundamental mismatch between the language of instruction and the learners’ native language.
‘What appears to be poor academic performance may actually reflect language barriers rather than intellectual limitations,’ he asserted.
The scholar warned that sidelining indigenous languages inflicts severe cultural damage, leading to a permanent loss of traditional wisdom and local worldviews.
The event also featured a panel session, presentation of post-doctoral awards to three scholars and the unveiling of a new book, Babs Fafunwa: A Mini-Biography for Youngsters, authored by celebrated writer, Prof Okey Ndibe.
Dignitaries in attendance included the Lagos State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Jamiu Alli-Balogun, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the state’s Ministry of Tertiary Education, Dr Adeniran Kasali.
Also present were Prof Sheri Ndibe, who represented her mother, the widow of Babs Fafunwa (Dr Doris Fafunwa), and students of Babs Fafunwa Millennium Senior Secondary School, Ojodu.
Participants at the event extolled the virtues of the late Babs Fafunwa, describing him as a great researcher, scholar and astute administrator.