Nigeria’s new English-only language policy ignores classroom and social realities
Chinazor Nwoda and Kingsley Ugwuanyi | XX September 2026 | Opinion Article
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Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, recently announced that English would become the sole language of instruction from primary school to tertiary education, reversing the 2022 National Language Policy, which had extended the provision for mother tongue-based instruction throughout primary education. The government attributed the reversal to poor examination results and implementation difficulties associated with MT education. Ironically, this reversal comes at a time when there is increased call for the adoption of MT education globally, and when countries within the region (such as Ghana) are making MT instruction compulsory.
It is strikingly ironical that the Minister made the pronouncement at the Language in Education International Conference 2025 on the theme ‘Language, Education and Inclusion: Empowering Every Learner’. This irony reveals, quite tellingly, the contradictions at the heart of Nigeria’s language-in-education policy: policymakers rhetoricise about inclusion while continuing to treat Nigerian languages as obstacles to learning, and English as the only credible language of education.
The contradictions become even clearer when this pronouncement is juxtaposed with wider trends in education policy. One of the themes in the Global Action Plans of the United Nations’ International Decade of Indigenous Languages is “qualitative and inclusive education in Indigenous languages.” Also, UNESCO’s 2025 Global Education Monitoring Report shows that ‘multilingual education based on home language is essential for learning, as it lays the foundation for basic literacy, supports the learning of additional languages, and improves learning outcomes across a range of subjects including math and science.’ This English-only policy does not just reverse a national multilingual policy; it moves against this international consensus that language inclusion is central to successful learning for school children.
Earlier iterations of the National Policy on Education had already provided for the use of the mother tongue or language of the immediate environment (LIE) up to Primary 3, before transition to English. What the 2022 policy did was to extend this principle to the whole of primary education.
On paper, this was a major shift. Yet the policy faced serious practical difficulties. For instance, many Nigerian languages are not yet codified, nor are there educational materials for use in education. Teachers are not always trained to teach through these languages.
A recent UNICEF study of language use in Nigerian primary classrooms showed that official policy and actual classroom practice often diverged. Teachers frequently translanguaged in class, often moving between English and learners’ L1s. However, this practice is not systematically embedded in a planned multilingual pedagogy and therefore depended largely on individual teachers, which results in uneven provision. Similarly, a Federal Ministry of Education report on early grade reading in Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba also found that many pupils understood local languages orally but struggled to read them because literacy in those languages had not been systematically supported.
This is the key issue. If mother-tongue education is introduced without trained teachers, books, terminology, public support and assessment planning, it will not see the light of day. But if English-only education is imposed on children learning through English as an additional language, that too will impede learning and create knowledge gaps.
The recent policy reversal therefore risks treating English as a quick solution to a much wider educational problem. Nigeria’s poor learning outcomes can also be linked with teacher quality, school infrastructure, poverty, overcrowded classrooms, weak literacy foundations, insecurity and uneven access to education.
This wider contradiction can also be seen beyond primary schools. In the work of one of the authors on Nigerian languages in Nigeria’s HEIs, it was found that Nigerian languages continue to be valued socially, but that this does not often translate into educational prestige.
Many students and parents continue to associate English-medium education with better career prospects and social mobility. Although proficiency in Nigerian languages can be economically valuable in some sectors, indigenous language programmes are seen as offering fewer long-term economic opportunities, even when they are supported by institutions. Nigerian languages are often celebrated as heritage, but not always treated as languages of knowledge, employment and national development.
The English-only turn also raises another question: which English? The official model of English in the Nigerian education system has historically looked towards British English. Yet the English widely used by teachers and learners reflects established Nigerian English features, while teaching materials and examinations often continue to privilege exonormative British norms.
As one of the authors has written elsewhere, ‘it is a grand irony that WAEC, NECO and JAMB [public examining bodies in Nigeria] still test students on aspects of ‘Oral English’ which are completely out of touch with the students’ daily linguistic realities. Can this be related to why there is a perpetual high failure rate in English? It might hold a great advantage for education policymakers to consider… recognising Nigerian English as the model for the teaching and learning of English in Nigeria.’ Any serious discussion of English-medium education in Nigeria must ask whether the English being taught and tested reflects the sociolinguistic realities of Nigerian classrooms.
Nigeria’s language debate needs to move beyond slogans. ‘Teach children in their mother tongue’ is not enough if the state does not provide the conditions needed to do so. Nor is the English-only policy a solution in a country with over 500 languages, where pupils in one classroom often have different home languages, and many encounter English mostly at school. The problem is further compounded when the English recognised by the school system remains exonormative and fails to reflect actual English usage in Nigerian classrooms and wider society.
The real policy problem is that Nigeria repeatedly announces language policies without creating the conditions for their implementation. The 2022 extension to the whole of primary education was announced without the materials, teacher preparation and pedagogy reforms needed to make it work. There is therefore little reason to assume that the new English-only policy will be implemented uniformly.
In practice, many teachers will likely continue to do what Nigerian teachers have long done: move between (Nigerian) English and the home languages of the learners. But without a coherent multilingual education system, provision and learning will remain uneven.
The real policy choice is not between mother tongue and English, but between unplanned practice and a workable multilingual system. Policy should be nationally coordinated but locally specified: states should use language mapping to determine which Nigerian language(s) can support learning in particular schools. In early years education, children should learn through a familiar language, followed by a planned bilingual transition to (Nigerian) English.
Making this work requires trained teachers, materials and assessments, and guidance that makes movement between languages pedagogically systematic rather than improvised. Models should be piloted and evaluated across different states before wider use. Examination bodies should also reconsider exonormative English norms that treat established Nigerian English usage as deficient. Until these conditions change, Nigeria will continue to tinker with language policies that ignore classroom realities and the country’s wider sociolinguistic milieu.
Further Reading
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About the Authors
Chinazor Nwoda is…..
Kingsley Ugwuanyi is…