…says scrapping the national language policy without comprehensive evaluation amounted to “burial of Nigeria’s future and pride.”
Abuja, Nigeria — The iNews Times | The Nigerian Academy of Education has condemned the Federal Government’s decision to abolish the National Language Policy, urging the Minister of Education, Maruf Alausa, to reverse what it described as a damaging blow to Nigeria’s cultural identity and early-grade learning.
In a position paper submitted on November 25 and released to journalists on Friday, the Academy insisted that overwhelming research supports mother-tongue instruction as the foundation for stronger academic performance and inclusive national development.
Signed by its President, Emeritus Prof. Olugbemiro Jegede, and Secretary-General, Prof. Chris Chukwurah, the NAE statement said abolishing national language instruction at foundational levels was a “grave disservice” to educational progress.
The Academy warned that scrapping the national language policy without comprehensive evaluation amounted to “permanent recolonisation and the burial of Nigeria’s future and pride.”
The Federal Government had recently cancelled the 2022 National Language Policy and reinstated English as the sole medium of instruction from pre-primary to tertiary levels, a position minister Alausa reaffirmed at the 2025 Language in Education Conference hosted by the British Council in Abuja. But the Academy insisted that decades of evidence, including the Ife Six-Year Primary Project and contemporary bilingual-education studies, prove that children taught first in their indigenous languages perform better academically, including in English, than those introduced prematurely to foreign-language learning.
The NAE faulted the minister’s justification linking students’ poor performance in public exams to mother-tongue teaching, noting that indigenous-language instruction ends at Primary Four and has no demonstrated correlation to national failure rates. It said no empirical data supports the claim that the 15-year use of the language-of-origin approach undermined learning outcomes.
Calling for immediate reinstatement of the National language policy, the Academy urged the government to strengthen implementation through teacher training, investment in learning materials, sustained stakeholder engagement and periodic evidence-based reviews. Safeguarding early-grade learning in Nigerian languages, it argued, is essential to protecting national heritage and reversing declining literacy.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the Academy also raised an alarm over the escalating attacks on schools, warning that Nigeria’s education sector is “under siege” and edging toward collapse. It cited at least 92 school invasions, 2,500 abducted learners, over 180 children killed, 90 injured and more than 90 still missing since the 2014 Chibok abduction – grim figures culminating in the November 21 attack on St. Mary’s School in Niger State.
The NAE said more than one million children now live in fear of schooling, describing the crisis as “not statistics but shattered dreams, grieving families and a generation at risk.” While acknowledging efforts such as the Safe Schools Declaration and the National Plan for Financing Safe Schools, the Academy said these initiatives have created only a “false sense of security” as schools across the North-East and Middle Belt remain exposed.
According to the Academy, the education system is buckling under insecurity, with schools lacking basic governance structures, emergency-response systems and fortified infrastructure. The psychological toll on children, teachers and families trauma, anxiety, burnout and emotional breakdown is deepening the collapse of public confidence. The long-term impacts, it warned, stretch into the economy as millions of out-of-school children reduce national productivity and weaken human-capital development.
The Academy demanded decisive intervention, including full protection for learners and staff in line with national and international obligations, stricter prosecution of offenders, improved intelligence sharing, trauma care for victims and compensation for bereaved families. “Education is the lifeblood of any nation. If Nigeria fails to protect its schools and its young ones, it fails to protect its future,” it said, urging government and civil society to move beyond rhetoric to coordinated action.
The controversy comes amid growing debate over the government’s reversal of the national language policy. Minister Alausa has argued that states using indigenous languages heavily at foundational levels recorded poor performance in national exams conducted in English. The administration maintains that restoring English as the sole instructional medium is a pragmatic response to learning failures.
However, critics caution that abandoning the National Language policy dismisses the benefits of bilingual education and threatens Nigeria’s linguistic diversity. Supporters of the reversal say it is a necessary corrective, while opponents insist it risks widening disparities and weakening children’s cognitive development. The NAE remains firm: “The time for promises has passed; the time for results is now.”
