‘It Has Destroyed Education’: FG Scraps Mother Tongue Policy, Mandates English From Pre-Primary Level
The federal government has cancelled the national policy mandating the use of indigenous languages as the medium of instruction in schools.
Tunji Alausa, the minister of education, announced this at the 2025 Language in Education International Conference organised by the British Council in Abuja on Wednesday.
The policy, approved in 2022, stipulated that from “early child care education to primary six, the language of instruction will be in the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community”.
Speaking at the conference, Alausa said English is now the language of instruction in Nigerian schools from primary to tertiary levels.
He said the decision followed “extensive data analysis” showing that the use of mother tongue as the main medium of instruction “had negatively affected learning outcomes”.
Alausa claimed Nigerian children “had been performing abysmally in public exams as a result of being taught in their mother tongue”.
“We have seen a mass failure rate in WAEC, NECO and JAMB in certain geo-political zones of the country, and those are the ones that adopted this mother tongue in an over-subscribed manner.
“This is about evidence-based governance. English now stands as the medium of instruction from the pre-primary, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary and to the tertiary education level.
“Using the mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions. We have to talk about evidence, not emotions,” Alausa said.
He declared: “The national policy on language has been cancelled. English now stands as the medium of instruction across all levels of education”.
The minister urged stakeholders with differing views “to present verifiable data to support their positions”.
Suwaiba Ahmed, the minister of state for education, also spoke at the event, noting that the government is designing a “new training package” for teachers to boost literacy and numeracy at the foundational level.
“Now we are designing a training package for the teachers that focuses on the learning of literacy and numeracy.
“This is specifically training teachers who teach across the foundation level from pre-primary to primary one to three,” she said.
Donna Mcgowan, the country director at British Council Nigeria, pledged to provide “continued support and expertise” to Nigeria’s education policies.
“We’re committed to working hand-in-hand with the ministry. We work across all areas of education in terms of supporting teacher professional development, school leadership and language proficiency,” McGowan said.
