Language Education and Youth Empowerment: A Linguistic Strategy for Achieving Nigeria’s Millennium Development Goals

Abstract

Language education is being considered in this paper as a veritable weapon or tool for youth empowerment. The author examines the contributions of Applied Linguistics to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Particular attention is paid to Nigeria’s National Policy on Education, specifically theNational Language Policy and its implementation strategies. The essence of this approach is to ascertain whether or not these policies have any sound philosophical orideological basis, and also whether or not there are pragmatic strategies for achieving the goals,especially that of youth empowerment. The paper posits that the education sector of the Nigerian society is supposed to be a very fertile ground for the generation and cultivation of new intellectual ideas, concepts and practices that can be applied to address the MDGs. To support this assertion, the author examines the documents on theNational Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), and the State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDS). It was found that Education For All (EFA) goals - aspects of MDGs- are laudable but their achievement is fraught with some intractable problems. Crafting philosophically sound policies isone thing but implementing them religiously is a different ball game. The author therefore proposessome linguistic strategies termed “Linguistic Andragogy” as a way out for effective youth empowerment.