[lg policy] Nigeria: Strategies for effective language policy for national development

Tue Apr 6 15:02:01 UTC 2010

Strategies for effective language policy for national development

Monday, 05 April 2010 20:38

It is no longer tenable to posit that the use of English language as
the Official Language [OL] of Nigeria has solved the problems of equal
access to knowledge, divisiveness and grinding poverty and
underdevelopment. Conversely, it can be argued that English as OL and
medium of instruction in schools has become a formidable and virtually
impenetrable barrier to access to knowledge and information to a great
part of the Nigerian society, by ostracizing the languages of the
environment and disengaging them from the business of education.  This
singular act of omission has effectively undermined and stunted the
growth and development of all the languages of the environment to near
incapacitation. The spiral effect of prioritizing foreign languages
against the languages of the environment is unmistakable: No Nigerian
society has ever acculturated modern knowledge to its cultural and
environmental context. Even to the south west that prides itself with
producing the largest number of professors on the African continent,
knowledge remains an imported foreign commodity accessible to only
those that are baptised with the English language. What is troubling,
however, is the meek acceptance of the status-quo as ideal and
sufficient for our educational and developmental need.

Ironically, recent statistics from NECO published in the Daily Trust
newspaper of Wednesday, March 17, 2010 showed that only 1.8% of the
total candidates that sat for the examination passed the required five
credits including English and Mathematics. That represents a total of
4223 out of 236,613 that sat for the exams. A staggering 98.2%
failure! Even if other factors come into play in this recurrent annual
show of shame, as indicated by Sanusi Abubakar in his Tuesday column
which was furnished with more sad statics, the impact of the language
factor in the massive and the near total collapse of the educational
sector have not been highlighted. It has become a taboo to talk of the
role of indigenous languages in the question of education and national
development. We all seem to always slavishly nod in approval of the
lie of the sufficiency of English language despite the grim statistics
to the contrary.  “It is now clear we are living a lie. Our education
has collapsed,” lamented Sanusi Abubakar .The Thursday, March 25,
2010, editorial of Daily Trust put it simply as Scandalous.

The bigger scandal however is that all along we’ve been lying to
ourselves and to others about the sufficiency of foreign languages in
addressing our educational and developmental problems. The truth,
simply put, is that amidst all the contributing factors that led to
this impasse of recurrent massive failure in examination, the language
factor stands out as the most critical. Ironically it is the factor
that we chose to deny. If we are not prepared to accept the fact that
foreign languages cannot be sufficient for the educational needs of
Nigeria, then the aspiration for a knowledge driven and modern society
will remain a mirage to us. Our policy makers must therefore, of
necessity, find a way of engaging and experimenting indigenous
languages [particularly the regional Lingua Franca] as languages of
instruction in at least some of our schools, thereby complimenting
English language which still serves as the sole vector of knowledge in
the country.

It is a big misperception to assume that fielding other languages as
languages of instruction challenge the position of English as the
nation’s official language. No, it doesn’t. Have we not been spending
millions of dollars sending our students to small countries like
Bulgaria, Romania and other non English speaking countries to study
medicine and other courses? Why can’t that gesture be extended to our
indigenous Lingua Franca?

Recently, the nation’s elites to gathered in Kaduna to foster
solutions to the problem of almajirci, in an annual lecture organized
by the Arewa Media Forum tagged ‘The Challenges of Almajirci and Child
Destitution in the North’. With the hoax of the indispensability of
the English language in the back of their minds, they failed fathom
out any better solution than to integrate the tsangaya system with the
conventional western based turanci or formal school system. Yet we all
know from the annual statistics that this system has failed and is
itself seriously crying out for salvation. The stake holders and
participants pretend to be ignorant of the fact that the only
inhibition to modern knowledge on the side of the almajiri is the
language of instruction and a little determination on the side of the
elites and policy makers could see the almajiri learning all the
sciences in his native tongue. The denial of the linguistic element in
under development and particularly in the lingering apprehension of
the average northerner about aspects of ‘western civilization’ and
cultural values is one of the greatest crimes of the elites against
the society. The longer we continue to deceive our selves concerning
the sufficiency of English language the more our problems would be
compounded.

The same goes for the seemingly more literate southern part of the
country. For all the beauty of the Yoruba culture and language and
love for learning, the vehicle of transfer and domestication of
knowledge have been effectively grounded by the  myth of the
sufficiency of the English language and preservation of national
unity. Ironically, the numerous researches conducted by the army of
Yoruba professors who are actually more numerically more than
Bulgarian professors, are recorded on the pages of history only as the
unending blaze of glory of western civilization and ‘advanced’
European languages which, seen from the other eye further confirms the
irrelevance of the Yoruba language. For instance, was ‘The Trial of
Brother Jero’ a master piece of the Yoruba language or another feather
on the hat of English language? Amidst the accolades for literary
accomplishments it has therefore become necessary to pause and ask
what the African man is celebrating- the demise of African languages
or the supremacy of the western culture? It was said that Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was translated into 54 languages across the
world. Sadly, I think no Nigerian language is included in the list. I
have never seen a Hausa translation of the book at all! I may be
wrong, however.

Accepting the insufficiency and inefficiency of the English language
for our developmental needs does not posit denying its advantages of
bringing diverse people together, particularly in our kind of society;
it is just awakening us to the responsibility of exploring other
alternative that might compliment what we already have. The question
here is: does the need for a unifying neutral language as an OL posit
the automatic and eternal consignment of indigenous languages to
oblivion? Do we as a multi lingual nation have any responsibility
towards the development of our indigenous languages so that they can
serve us better? Or, are we condemned by the reality of our nationhood
to an eternal subjugation of the potentialities of our languages and
cultural identities under the imposed domination of the colonialist’s
cultures and languages? Is the nation antithetical to its segmented
units or complimentary? Can the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and the more than
400 languages found in Nigeria develop in spite of English being the
OL?

While not trying to challenge the status quo of the nation state and
the post colonial hybrid character as the best possible state of
existence for the country it is very questionable whether the only
guaranty for development is the use of English Language as the only
language of instruction in our schools. The potentials of the
indigenous languages for broad based mass literacy and knowledge
acculturation have never been accessed much less exploited. There is
thus the need for a proactive approach to the issue of development
which must involve a sound linguistic policy that sees the utilization
of indigenous languages as languages of instruction in our schools.

There is obviously the need to re arrange or set our priorities
straight. We must accept that we have a responsibility of not only
preserving individual cultural and linguistic identities but that for
acculturation of knowledge and genuine progress and development we
must have to utilize our indigenous languages in the enterprise of
education. In this regard, the Nigerian language policy must be
redirected towards improvement of indigenous languages and their
proper utilization for the attainment of development goals. We must
accept the potentials of indigenous languages for domestication of
knowledge and broad based grass root reach as against the English
Language. If English brings unity local dialects hold the key to
development.

According to Bambose, the principle of Nigerian educational language
policy is based on ‘equal opportunity to access to language of
education; thorough grounding in the child’s own language; thorough
mastery of English and bilingualism in two Nigerian languages.’ Equal
opportunity to access to language of Instruction can only be enhanced
when local dialects and particularly the Lingua Franca are
competitively involved in the enterprise of education.

Muazu Gusau is Secretary of Gusau Educational Development Association,
Ministry of Housing and Town Planning, Gusau ( attamuazu at yahoo.comThis
e-mail address is being protected from spambots.

 http://news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16768:strategies-for-effective-language-policy-for-national-development-it-is-no-longer-tenable-to-posit-that-the-use-of-english-language-as-the-official-language-ol-of-nigeria-has-solved-the-problems-of-equal-access-to-knowledge-divisiveness-and-grinding-po&catid=47:daily-columns&Itemid=31

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.
(H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list