Teaching maths, science in indigenous languages
In a bid to actualise the teaching of some school subjects in Nigeria’s indigenous languages, the federal government on Tuesday May 30, 2017 constituted an inter-ministerial committee on the use of Nigerian languages to teach mathematics and science in schools across the country. While inaugurating the committee in Abuja, the Minister of Science and Technology […]
In a bid to actualise the teaching of some school subjects in Nigeria’s indigenous languages, the federal government on Tuesday May 30, 2017 constituted an inter-ministerial committee on the use of Nigerian languages to teach mathematics and science in schools across the country.
While inaugurating the committee in Abuja, the Minister of Science and Technology Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, said nations that have done well used their indigenous languages to teach mathematics and science at the primary and secondary school levels. Citing China and India as models, Dr. Ogbonnaya said technological advancement in these countries grew fast because mathematics and science were taught in indigenous languages.
In his address, the Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu, said the move by the federal ministry of science and technology is a fundamental initiative, adding that the use of local languages in teaching would facilitate the nation’s breakthrough in science and technology.
Daily Trust similarly consider this as a laudable move especially if it will take the country to where it should be in the world of modern science and technology. It is a patriotic endeavor worth undertaking since China, India and Japan each used their indigenous languages to develop science and technology.
Prof. Fafuwa conducted an experiment of this idea in two separate schools in Ile-Ife. While pupils in one of the schools were taught in English, pupils in the other received lessons in Yoruba language. The result of this experiment showed that pupils in the schools where Yoruba (mother-tongue of the pupils) was the medium of instruction came out with distinctions in mathematics and science subjects. Fafunwa argued that European and Japanese children learn better because they are taught in their indigenous languages.
Nonetheless, it is important to clarify that scientific advancement did not happen in those countries because of their use of indigenous languages to teach science and mathematics. Rather, it is a reflection of commitment by government of such nations in providing the friendliest environment for teaching, learning and researching in science and technology. What difference, for instance, would it make in Nigeria if mathematics and science are taught in local Nigerian languages but under ill-equipped science laboratories or by unqualified teachers or with outdated textbooks?
The teaching or learning of science does not necessarily require the use of mother-tongue because it is a global phenomenon. If speakers of every language were to provide name for every animal or plant or decode every mathematical formula in to their indigenous science textbooks, it would be difficult for natives of one language to learn science from books written in other tongues. That is why in Biology, for example, there are botanical names for plants and animals, which is basically for the sake of standardisation.
As reliable and valid as Fafunwa’s experiment sounded at that time, several challenges today stand in the way of its implementation. For instance, how many mathematics or science teachers in Nigeria speak their mother-tongues fluently? Except for Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, the orthography of most Nigerian languages are still un-developed. How and when would such lowly-developed languages acquire the wealth of vocabulary and syntactic structure needed to produce textbooks in indigenous languages?
The presence of children from different ethnic backgrounds in one class is another challenge. In a heterogeneous society like Nigeria where there are 250 languages, the choice of which language to adopt in teaching these subjects to a class of pupils is an issue. A Nigerian child who, for example, is taught in Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba language but whose mother-tongue is other than these languages is in no way better than the child taught in English because Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba is as foreign to the former as English is to the latter.
It would not be wise for government to dissipate national energy and resources on this initiative. Without prejudices, Nigeria is almost starting late in this regard. However, government could begin in conjunction with the federal ministry of education to implement section 20(d) of the existing National Policy on Education which states that ‘the medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the language of immediate environment for the first three years in monolingual communities’. The success of this should then determine the strategies for the life-long project of teaching mathematics and science in Nigerian languages.