The Federal Government (FG) has officially cancelled the national policy mandating the use of indigenous languages as the medium of instruction in Nigerian schools, declaring English as the sole language of instruction from the primary to tertiary levels.
Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced the decision on Wednesday during the 2025 Language in Education International Conference organised by the British Council in Abuja.
He explained that the move followed extensive data analysis which revealed that teaching students in their mother tongue negatively affected learning outcomes and examination performance across several regions.
“We have seen a mass failure rate in WAEC, NECO, and JAMB in certain geo-political zones of the country, and those are the ones that adopted this mother tongue in an over-subscribed manner,” Alausa said.
“This is about evidence-based governance. English now stands as the medium of instruction from the pre-primary, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary and to the tertiary education level,” he added.
The minister further stated that data gathered from schools nationwide showed that students taught primarily in indigenous languages recorded higher failure rates and struggled with basic English comprehension.
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“Using the mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions. We have to talk about evidence, not emotions,” he said.
Alausa noted that while the 2022 National Language Policy aimed to promote indigenous languages and improve early childhood learning, the evidence showed that the approach had backfired, prompting the government to review and ultimately cancel the policy.
“The national policy on language has been cancelled. English now stands as the medium of instruction across all levels of education,” he declared.
He urged stakeholders with opposing views to present verifiable data to support their positions, stressing that the government remains open to evidence-based dialogue that would strengthen Nigeria’s education system.
Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmed, also highlighted ongoing efforts to improve teaching quality at the foundational level, noting that a new training package has been developed for teachers to enhance literacy and numeracy skills.
“Now we are designing a training package for the teachers that focuses on the learning of literacy and numeracy. This is specifically training teachers who teach across the foundation level from pre-primary to primary one to three.
“We are training them how best to teach literacy, how best to teach numeracy, and of course, the approach,” she explained.
The Country Director of the British Council in Nigeria, Donna McGowan, reaffirmed the council’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s education reforms and promoting teacher development.
“We’re committed to working hand-in-hand with the ministry. We work across all areas of education in terms of supporting teacher professional development, school leadership, and language proficiency,” McGowan said.
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