The National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy has secured approval from the management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to commence teaching of Nigerian indigenous languages in 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
This is part of the new national cultural orientation drive towards national re-enactment of Nigeria’s cultural values. Language is a veritable component of culture and to this extent, the nationwide indigenous language training for corps members by the Institute will kick-start with a pilot scheme for Abuja at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Kubwa on Thursday, February 29th, 2024 with instructional sessions in the three major languages; Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba as well as the language of the host community which is Gbagyi.
While the on-camp language training is designed to come with effective modalities for Corps members to learn languages other than their mother tongue, especially the language of their host community for ease of communication and interaction, it is expected that the training will metamorphose into Community Development Service (CDS) groups to further broaden their knowledge of the languages learnt.
By acquiring proficiency in these languages, corps members can interact more efficiently with community residents and improve on their communication skills during community development initiatives and various interactions, thus fostering harmonious coexistence as the programme is designed to create a sense of pride in our indigenous languages; foster national pride; unity and identity as well as encourage the need to preserve our indigenous languages.
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