We Need To Localise Education In Nigeria —Lagos Deputy Speaker

Deputy Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Kolawole Taiwo, has lamented the state of the country’s education.

He suggested that stakeholders in the sector should direct their thoughts towards localising education.

One of the ways to do this, he said, is for pupils and students to study in their local languages just as it is done in countries like Japan and China.

He said just as this would make them learn easily and effectively, it would also help to retain the country’s diverse languages and cultures.

Taiwo, a statistician, also argued that the standard of education had fallen because of the emphasis on certificates.

According to him, as a result of the desperation to acquire paper qualification, students and candidates of educational institutions now adopt various ways of cheating.

He further said examination questions these days have become too difficult for the students as compared to his period as a student just as he blamed examination bodies for recognising special centres.

He blamed educational institutions for refusing to have a place for students with average scores in examinations, adding  that most of these students are actually more brilliant because they did the examinations without external assistance.

He said experience had shown that many of the candidates who scored enviable marks in examinations were actually assisted, but the average students, who are mostly from poor homes without anyone to assist them, are often very serious with their studies.

“The HSC period of those days was better than what we have now because you will be more exposed than the normal O’ level system, this is coupled with the fact that the syllabus now is a little tougher than then. I saw the last G.C.E Mathematics and I was surprised.  We need to localise our education, that is the only way we can get out of the problem.

“Let us use our mother tongue to learn. I wrote English Language examination recently and I was surprised. How can somebody from my area, Ajegunle, talk about understanding lexis and structure?

“We use a language that is not too common to our children, you set English Language exam and you are talking about football to children, will they know everything about football?

“In those days, we used to learn in our language, but it is not like that again, they learn A for Apple and some of them don’t even know what an apple is. Has somebody from Ajegunle seen an apple before? We are not serious about education in this country and it is unfortunate.

“We should go a step further, let us write books, and encourage people to write books in our local languages. Let our people change the books in English Language to Yoruba. Samuel Ajayi Crowther wrote the first Yoruba Bible many years back from the ancient English language and with what he did, there is no book you can’t translate to your language,” he emphasised.

He further said his colleague, Sikiru Osinowo, once said that when they got to Italy, they were first sent to a language class.

“No matter where you come from, you must speak Italian language once you are there, because they are not going to teach you in any other language. The Iranian leader was in Columbus University in the United States recently, he was to address them as a graduate of the university.

“This means he could speak English very well, but he addressed them in Arabic language, and they got a translator. If you see a typical German, they would not speak English language to you. Though they can speak English, because they are closer to England than us, yet they speak their own language,” he said.

Taiwo, who said he had a Pass in English Language as student, lamented that he has now been asked to go and get English in the G.C.E before he could study for his PhD.