USAID promotes mother tongue in early school learning in Gombe
Strengthening Education in North East Nigeria (SENSE), a USAID funded project, has advised parents and community leaders to support early school learning in the mother tongue.
Dr Audu Liman, the Chief of Party USAID, gave the advice at Bomala village in Kwami Local Government Area of the state during the celebration of the 2021 International Mother Language Day at Bomala Primary School.
Reports said that the day will be celebrated on Feb. 21, and the 2021 theme is “Fostering Multilingualism for Inclusion in Education and Society”.
He said learning in mother tongue, which is known as Hausa in the North Eastern part of the country, would benefit the child in numerous ways by supporting him in the learning of other languages like English.
“We want the child to master the Hausa language which is the mother tongue in Primary 1 to 3 before switching off to English,” he explained.
“If really, we want to improve the quality of education, we must take account of mother tongue thereafter other languages.
“Research has shown that this is the best way to teach a child, unfortunately parents are not doing it, hence we encourage parents to take pride in their language.
“We are here to demonstrate our pride in Hausa language because this is our language and our message for educated people who have their languages but have forgotten.
“We are appealing to the public especially the educated not to send their children to school that they will learn English from primary one because it’s wrong.
“The right way is to send your child to a school where they start with Hausa so that your child will master the language first from primary one to two before he switch to English in primary three or four,” he said.
Liman said they decided to celebrate the day on Friday with pupils of Bomala Primary School, teachers and parents because Feb. 21, the day set aside for the commemoration is Sunday and “there is no school”.
Mal. Yuguda Yaro, the Education Secretary, Kwami LGA, also said SENSE has selected seven primary schools in the area and the project is impacting positively on teachers and pupils.
While calling on SENSE to extend their services to other schools in the local government, he said even the teachers had benefited from the project, aside the pupils.
Malam Ba’ale Alhaji, the Head Teacher, Bomala Primary school, commended SENSE project for the provision of Hausa learning books for primary 1-3 in the school.
He said the project was impacting positively on the children because through the Hausa story books provided by SENSE, they were encouraged.
On his part, Malam Yakubu Ibrahim, the Village Head of Bomala, commended SENSE for celebrating the International Mother Language day in the community, noting that the project will improve the standard of education.
Reports state that the highlight of the event was reading of Hausa story books to pupils by their parents.
