The language provisions of the national policy on education and the endangerment of Ogu in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT The National Policy on Education (NPE) in Nigeria stipulates that every child should be taught in the language of its immediate environment in the first three years of elementary education. This paper examines the NPE as it affects elementary schools in Ogu-speaking communities in Southwestern Nigeria. Using the research instruments of interviews and focus group discussions across three local government areas in Ogun and Lagos States, where there is a significant presence of Ogu people, data collected reveal that the NPE is not being implemented in the communities under study, as Yorùbá remains the medium of instruction. The study argues that rather than facilitating Ogu vitality, the policy has had negative implications for the language, as its speakers continue to experience widespread shift to Yorùbá. This is because Ogu children are forced to acquire some degree of proficiency in Yorùbá before they can even be admitted to elementary schools in their own communities. Inevitably, the paper does a critique of the contradictions of the NPE in Ogu-speaking communities and calls for government intervention in saving minority languages by seeing to it that it facilitates the actual implementation of the NPE in every community in the country.