The federal government announced this Thursday that it has cancelled the 2022 National Language Policy and reinstated English as the sole medium of instruction from pre-primary through tertiary levels. The Education Minister, Dr Tunji Alausa, framed the move as an “evidence-based” response to falling exam performance in areas that had adopted mother-tongue instruction. The decision marks a dramatic reversal of a three-year experiment that aimed to expand mother-tongue based multilingual education across Nigeria.
What changed and why it matters
The 2022 policy had extended earlier guidance that recommended children be taught core literacy, numeracy and basic science in the language of their immediate community for the early primary years, with English introduced progressively. Globally, bodies like UNESCO and the World Bank have long argued that learning foundational skills in a child’s first language improves early literacy and numeracy and eases later second-language acquisition. Those studies report sizeable gains in reading comprehension and retention when mother-tongue instruction is well implemented.
But Dr Alausa and the ministry cited a different set of problems: rising failure rates in national exams (WAEC, NECO, JAMB) in some regions that rolled out indigenous-language instruction aggressively; severe shortages of teachers trained to teach in hundreds of local languages; a lack of textbooks and materials in many tongues; and misalignment between local-language teaching and national examinations, which remain in English. The minister said the move is aimed at restoring learning outcomes and giving pupils earlier exposure to the language used in exams, tertiary education and many workplaces.
Who is affected
The reversal touches millions of learners in a country where more than 500 indigenous languages are spoken and education indicators already lag regional peers. Nigeria also faces a staggering out-of-school problem: recent UN data cites between roughly 10 and 20 million children out of formal schooling depending on the agency and the age bracket assessed, underscoring how fragile progress in access and learning has become. Analysts warn that a sudden switch to English-only instruction risks widening rural-urban divides where home languages dominate classroom contexts.
Voices on both sides
Supporters welcomed the move as pragmatic. Some educators and parents told reporters they expect clearer alignment with national exams and faster gains in English proficiency, a skill often seen as essential for higher education and many formal jobs.
Critics called the reversal premature. Anthony Osekhuemen Otaigbe, who runs Izesan Limited (a developer of local-language learning tools), described the decision as a “step backward,” arguing failures reflect poor implementation, underfunding and teacher shortages rather than the pedagogy itself. Otaigbe pointed to field evidence from state pilots and international cases, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Philippines — where mother-tongue or bilingual approaches produced measurable literacy gains when adequately resourced. Linguists and social commentators also warned the switch risks accelerating language loss and reinforcing colonial language hierarchies.
Practical challenges and likely consequences
The ministry says it will roll the change out immediately, but offered limited detail on transitional support. Key practical challenges include:
- Teacher training: Many classrooms do not have instructors certified to teach academic subjects in local tongues.
- Materials and curricula: Textbooks, graded readers and exam-linked resources in hundreds of languages are scarce.
- Assessment mismatch: Major exams are administered exclusively in English, creating friction for pupils who previously learned core concepts in their home language.
- Equity risks: Children who speak languages not widely represented in urban centers may face deeper comprehension gaps if instruction shifts abruptly to English.
Experts warn the policy could reduce comprehension and retention for learners who enter school with minimal English exposure unless the government couples the change with heavy investment in teacher development and remedial support. At the system level, the decision focuses debate on a larger question: fix the implementation or the policy?
What stakeholders want next
Civil society and education technology providers are calling for a middle path: investments in bilingual teacher training, regional pilots to test scalable models, quality assurance for local-language materials, and use of digital tools (including AI-powered translation and adaptive learning) to bridge gaps. Some urge formal consultations via the National Council on Education before a nation-wide rollout, arguing that a rushed reversal risks long-term harm to linguistic diversity and learning equity.
The ministry has signalled openness to evidence-based discussion but has set the new English-first approach as the default for now. How rapidly states, exam bodies, school systems and parents adapt will determine whether the policy change yields the intended gains or deepens existing divides.
Bottom line
Nigeria’s decision to cancel the mother-tongue policy and re-centre English is a high-stakes gamble on short-term exam outcomes and national coherence. International research supports mother-tongue foundations for early learning, but the Nigerian rollout revealed real implementation gaps. The coming months will test whether policymakers pair the change with meaningful investments in teachers, materials and remedial programs, or whether the move simply trades one set of problems for another.
