WHEN WE SCRAP LANGUAGE ,WE SCRAP IDENTITY:

…..reclaiming indigenous languages in Nigeria’s early childhood education_
By Ohore Emmanuel Ufuoma an early childhood advocate.

The first objective of the colonial master was to deal with Africans’ mental state, making them feel what they have is inferior. Visit any Early Childhood classroom in Lagos, Ekiti-State, Abuja, or Port Harcourt today and the only dominant language that is spoken is: English. Not Yoruba. Not Igbo. Not Hausa. Not Ibibio. English. Students are punished for not speaking proper English, even though some friends bully them for speaking broken English.

We have quietly “scrapped” indigenous languages from the foundation of our education system. In the last three decades we went on devaluing our teaching system by removing the v…
Teachers are trained to use songs, stories, and play to teach in both English and the mother tongue.
In order to revive our language we must treat it as infrastructure and we must look into Teachers training and capacity building, policy and advocacy and must mandate SUBEB AND UBEC to enforce 60% of ECD 1-3 be in the dominant local language with English taught as a subject.
The government funds curriculum development in local languages. The lesson for Nigeria is clear: It is not too late. Revival is possible if we treat language as infrastructure, not as an afterthought. The Solution: 3 Steps to Make Local Language the Standard in Nigerian ECD
1. Policy and Government Advocacy
We must enforce Section 14 of the National Policy on Education. SUBEB and UBEC should mandate that 60% of instruction in ECD 1-3 be in the dominant local language of the environment, with English taught as a subject. We also need funding for the development and printing of textbooks, storybooks, and digital content in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and other Nigerian languages because our language is our curriculum.
Nigeria’s progress cannot stem from imitating another country’s language while discarding our own. A child well-versed in their native tongue will acquire English more swiftly, engage in deeper critical thinking, and foster a sense of pride in their identity. The omission of our indigenous languages and historical narratives from the educational framework is not merely an academic issue; it’s a matter of national security and cultural erasure. It is time to transition from neglect to recognition. Let’s restore indigenous languages to their rightful place.