Child literacy: UNICEF, partners advocate teaching, learning in mother-tongue

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and some of its partners have suggested that mother-tongue approach be adopted in teaching and learning in Nigeria, particularly at basic education level.

UNICEF said research has shown that children learn better and understand more when they are taught in their mother-tongue, particularly science subjects at the early stage in life, while second language are gradually introduced later in life.

UNICEF Nigeria Chief of Education, Saadhna Panday-Soobrayan, who spoke at a seminar in Abuja, yesterday, jointly organised with USAID on scaling foundational literacy and numeracy in Nigeria, said millions of children are lost, in interest and attendance, along the way of basic education system due to language barrier.

She made reference to several developed countries of the world where the approach, teaching in mother-tongue, was adopted in their basic education system to improve on the literacy and numeracy of their young ones.

She said: “Studies and evidences across the world have shown that when you teach children in mother-tongue, especially at age 1 to 3, they learn better and faster. The use of mother-tongue, unarguably, assist the children to acquire basic numeracy and literacy skills. You can then switch to second language slightly later in life. Obviously, improved results are achieved with this approach.

“In addition to that, teachers should be trained to teach in local languages. There should also be books and other tutorial materials produced in local languages. These would also go a long way in solving the literacy problems in Nigeria.”

She, however, predicted that expected improvement in children literacy and numeracy won’t come as soon as expected because of poor financial investment in the education system, particularly at basic level.

She said: “Nigeria is spending too little on education. On average, 1.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country is being spent on education when the international benchmark was four to six per cent. Even the available money is not spent well.

“Larger percentage of the allocated funds are spent on higher education when children at basic education level can neither read, write nor count. In nutshell, significant investment is required in Nigeria’s education system particularly at basic level.”