The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has called on nations to support mother-language education and pursue a policy of multilingual education. The agency also said that children should be taught in their mother tongue during the earliest years of their schooling, alongside the official language of instruction.
UNESCO made the call on the celebration of the 2023 International Mother Language Day (IMLD), which holds on February 21 every year. The Day is marked annually to promote the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity and multilingualism. IMLD was formally recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in 2002. Mother Language Day is part of a broader initiative to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.
In his message on the occasion, the UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, stated the importance of preserving the linguistic diversity, which is an essential cultural element and urged governments to embrace multilingual education based on the mother tongue from the earliest years of schooling.
The Director of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, David Atchoarena, who spoke in the same vein, said: “Offering education in the mother tongue is essential to transmitting and preserving traditional knowledge and culture. Children, youth and adults require learning opportunities that are relevant to their lives and needs. This also includes having access to an education in their own language. Evidence shows that such provision contributes to improving learning and developing confidence and self-esteem.”
Experts are of the opinion that children taught in the language they speak at home are 30 per cent more likely to read with understanding by the end of primary school than those who do not speak the language of instruction at home. Evidence also shows that children’s social skills are improved by learning in their mother tongue.
Learning in mother tongue at the formative stage also ensures smooth transition of the child from home to school. It facilitates learning for children and encourages them to go to school. The practice equally enhances the teacher-student relationship and boosts confidence in the children. Teaching the children in their mother tongue widens the horizon of communication, preserves the local languages and prevents them from going into extinction. It is also a veritable avenue for transmission of culture from one generation to another. Studies have shown that at least 40 per cent of the more than 6,700 languages spoken around the world are threatened with extinction in the long term, due to lack of speakers. Many are no longer spoken or have remained largely undocumented.
Not less than 29 Nigerian languages have become extinct out of about 250 languages. To prevent more languages from going into extinction, the government recently recommended that mother tongue should be used exclusively for the first six years of education and later combined with the English language from Junior Secondary School. As part of the policy, the mother tongue to be used in each school will be the dominant language spoken by the community where it is located.
International Mother Language Day is part of the plan to encourage multilingualism in education and preserve some indigenous languages that may likely die if they are not used in education.
We commend the UNESCO for the bold initiative and urge the government to do more to promote mother tongue education. However, mother tongue education has its challenges, ranging from lack of manpower and teaching materials. Some of these languages are yet to be standardised and some do not have written literature and other books.Effective implementation of mother tongue education requires enormous manpower before its take-off. Some of the affected communities do not have teachers trained in their local languages. Many are also in remote locations that do not offer attractions to teachers.
There is need to train more teachers in the various languages for mother tongue education to be effective. The instructional materials for the relevant languages should be made available. Since culture is transmitted through language, we call for the preservation of our indigenous languages. Beyond the school environment, parents should take it as a responsibility to speak their local languages at home.
For instance, some states in the country have made it compulsory for students to offer at least one indigenous language in school. Anambra State has set aside a particular day in which the local language is the means of communication in the state. We urge other states to emulate Anambra. Without promoting the indigenous languages through education and encouraging the young ones to speak them, they will soon die.