Fafunwa Educational Foundation (FEF) has commended the federal government on its just announced policy of making mother tongue compulsory in the country’s primary schools.
The FEF is a major non-governmental organisation that both analyses issues on Nigeria’s education sector and advocates salutary policies.
Its founder, the late Prof Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, a former minister of education, who died in 2010, was an earnest and persuasive champion of the adoption of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the nation`s primary schools.
According to a statement by the FEF`s secretary, Muyiwa Obiyomi, the widow of the founder and the foundation`s chair, Mrs Doris Fafunwa, said she was heartened to learn that the Nigerian government had finally adopted a policy long proposed by her late husband.
She expressed hope that policy makers, teachers, parents, students and other stakeholders would approach the implementation of the new policy with requisite rigor, wisdom and investment of time and resources.
Mrs Fafunwa added, “If properly implemented, the policy is bound to help preserve Nigerian culture and save many indigenous languages from the threat of extinction.”
She called on Nigerians to be proud of their rich cultures, urging parents to cultivate the habit of interacting with their children and wards in indigenous language instead of leaving the implementation of mother tongue education entirely to teachers.
Mrs Fafunwa added that members of the FEF were willing to assist policy makers and teachers in making a success of the new policy.
Fafunwa encouraged the FEF to organise series of conferences to advance the case for adopting mother tongue in childhood education.
Fafunwa pioneered the production of a science programme at the primary education level in Nigeria, and chaired the “Fafunwa Study Group” on the funding of primary education. The group’s report led to the creation in 1987 of Nigeria’s National Primary Education Commission (NPEC). He wrote that primary school education in the mother tongue would “deliver students from the shackles of colonialism, allow for effective and meaningful communication between the teachers and students within and outside the classroom and also promote the development of mature judgment by the pupils.”
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