Mother tongue aids students’performance, says expert

It is imperative to adopt the mother tongue or indigenous languages for teaching from the lower cadre to tertiary institutions to make students perform better.

The Federal Government announced in  December 2022,  that first languages would be used  for instruction in primary schools.

Atala noted that students would do better when taught  in their mother tongues or indigenous languages, adding that his books are geared towards popularising and advocating the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction in schools.

“If all children or everyone in Africa is educated in the first languages, it means that there will no longer be an illiterate person in Africa, and this will in turn impact governance and communities positively,” he said.

He decried Africa’s underdeveloped status  in comparison with the rest of the world  because education is done in foreign languages.He urged  Africans to place premium on their languages to boost all round development.

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“Precisely in 1884/ 1885, at the realisation of the Second Industrial Revolution, seven European nations sat in Berlin, Germany to impose their languages and cultures on Africa. Their languages have locked up education from the majority of our people. That singular act sent Africa back to the Dark Ages which ended in the 15th century.

“Educate everybody in Africa in the first languages, that means there will no longer be an illiterate person in Africa. And that will impact governance in the communities positively.

“Africa is not modern because the continent has not used its first languages in the education of its people as done by others since the renaissance. Other people dropped foreign Latin for their vernaculars since the 14th century. As I continued to research earlier efforts to validate my advocacy, I read about the experiment that Prof. Babs Fafunwa did from 1970 to 1978, with some students in now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.  His experiment affirmed that students will do better when educated in the mother tongues,” he said.

The reviewer, Prof.Tayo Ogunlewe of the University of Lagos described the book as timely and  significant towards the  advocacy for mother tongue as a medium of instruction in education.

He said  it is for a re-appraisal of the value and the need for better recognition and valuation of indigenous African knowledge systems. He said it will be most useful for mother-tongue or first  language activists, indigenous knowledge systems advocates, linguists scholars, educational policy planners and the public.

Mother tongue aids students’performance, says expert