Gombe State: USAID advocates use of mother tongue in early basic schools

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID’s funded project, Strengthening Education in North-East Nigeria, SENSE, has called on Gombe parents and community leaders to support the use of mother tongue for pupils in early schools

Speaking during the 2021 celebration of the International Mother Language Day at Bomala Primary School in Kwami Local Government Area of Gombe State, the USAID Chief of Party, Dr Audu Liman, said learning with mother tongue would benefit the child in numerous ways by supporting him in the learning other languages like English.

He explained that the project wanted children to master the Hausa Language, which is the mother tongue in Primaries 1 to 3, before switching off to English, so as to improve the quality of Education.

According to him, research had shown that the use of the mother tongue was the best way to teach a child, but that it was unfortunate that parents were not doing much, hence encouraging parents to take pride in their language.

 “We are here to demonstrate our pride in the Hausa Language because this is our language and our message for educated people who have their language but have forgotten. We are appealing to the public especially the educated not to send their children to a school that they will learn English from primary one because it’s wrong,” said Dr Liman.

He said the right approach was in sending children to the school where they start with Hausa so that they would master the language first from primary one to two before switching to English in primary three or four.

Dr Liman said the USAID decided to celebrate the day on Friday with pupils, Teachers and parent of Bomala Primary School, because February 21 was the actual day set aside for the commemoration, which would be on Sunday when there would be no school.

The Education Secretary of Kwami Local Government Area, Mallam Yuguda Yaro, also said the SENSE programme, which selected seven primary schools in Kwami LGA had made a lot of positive impact on teachers and pupils alike.

While calling on SENSE to extend their services to other schools in the Local Government Area, he said even the teachers had benefited from the project not only pupils.

Similarly, Head Teacher Bomala Primary school, Mallam Ba’ale Alhaji, commended the SENSE project for the provision of Hausa learning books for primaries 1 to 3 in the school.

He said the project was impacting positively on the children because through the Hausa storybooks provided, the children were now more encouraged than ever before.

The International Mother Language day is celebrated on the 21st of February every year and the theme for the 2021 edition is “Fostering Multilingualism for Inclusion in Education and Society”.

PIAK