Language, Power, and Decolonial Futures: Rethinking Language Policy in Postcolonial Africa (Published)
Since UNESCO’s 1953 report The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education advocated mother-tongue education, language policy has been widely recognised as a critical factor in promoting equitable education, social inclusion, and cultural sustainability. Despite extensive policy commitments, pilot initiatives, and strong empirical evidence demonstrating the pedagogical and socio-political value of African languages, most postcolonial African states continue to privilege former colonial languages as the primary media of instruction and governance. Although existing scholarship has documented challenges in policy implementation, it has largely examined language policy failure through technical, economic, or administrative lenses, thereby overlooking the structural and political forces that sustain linguistic hierarchies. The present study adopts a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the concepts of (de)coloniality, linguistic capital, and epistemic justice to conceptualise language policy as a contested site of power rather than informed planning. The study uses a qualitative critical policy analysis of international declarations, national language policy documents, and selected empirical studies from sub-Saharan Africa to examine the persistent failure of language policy reforms. The findings reveal that the continued dominance of colonial languages is not primarily the result of linguistic planning incapacity but reflects enduring colonial legacies embedded in state institutions, elite reproduction, and global regimes of linguistic legitimacy. These dynamics systematically marginalise African languages and undermine the sustainability of multilingual education reforms. The paper argues that meaningful language policy reform requires re-centring African languages as legitimate instruments of education, governance, and knowledge production, with important implications for linguistic justice, democratic participation, and postcolonial transformation.
Keywords: African languages, Language policy, decolonial theory, linguistic legitimacy, multilingual education
Language in Education: Barriers and Bridges (Published)
This article explores the implementation of Ghana’s local language in education policy; how it has been received and practiced in public basic schools, and the major challenges and implications. Through the study, the author highlights critical issues within local education practices that suggest a mismatch between education language policy and classroom practice. It is suggested that one of the primary reasons for the poor performance in schools lies in the oral orientation to classroom practices at the foundation stage at the expense of literate ways of thinking and reasoning and that an emphasis on literacy in the mother tongue at the foundation stage may help to shift the focus on student academic development where it belongs.
Keywords: English Language, Implementation, Language policy, Literacy, Mother tongue
Reviving Indigenous Languages through Teaching and Learning: The Case of Igala Language (Published)
The paper highlights the world’s language situation especially in Africa, where majority languages have better chances of survival than the minority ones in the face of dominant languages of the ex-colonial masters like English, French and Spanish. It analyses the state of indigenous languages in Nigeria in particular with the position of Igala language in the country and in the educational sector. The paper examines language planning ideology and the language policy in Nigeria. It discovers that there is lack of interest by government and school administrators to implement the national policy on education concerning language. Consequently, it feels that teaching and learning in indigenous languages and in Igala in particular need to be revived to save hundreds of Nigerian languages from going extinct as well as to turn around the poor state of education through early mother tongue instruction. It recommends that government at all levels should ensure the implementation of the mother tongue instruction in early education by providing funds, equipment, teaching aids and supervision.
Keywords: Extinction of Languages, Igala Language, Kogi State, Language Ideology, Language policy, Linguistic Rights, Majority Language, Minority Language, Mother tongue instruction, Multilingualism, Nigeria, Policy Implementation, Revalorization
REVIVING INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES THROUGH TEACHING AND LEARNING- THE CASE OF IGALA LANGUAGE (Published)
The paper highlights the world’s language situation especially in Africa, where majority languages have better chances of survival than the minority ones in the face of dominant languages of the ex-colonial masters like English, French and Spanish. It analyses the state of indigenous languages in Nigeria in particular with the position of Igala language in the country and in the educational sector. The paper examines language planning ideology and the language policy in Nigeria. It discovers that there is lack of interest by government and school administrators to implement the national policy on education concerning language. Consequently, it feels that teaching and learning in indigenous languages and in Igala in particular need to be revived to save hundreds of Nigerian languages from going extinct as well as to turn around the poor state of education through early mother tongue instruction. It recommends that government at all levels should ensure the implementation of the mother tongue instruction in early education by providing funds, equipment, teaching aids and supervision.
Keywords: Extinction of Languages, Igala Language, Kogi State, Language Ideology, Language policy, Linguistic Rights, Majority Language, Minority Language, Mother tongue instruction, Multilingualism, Nigeria, Policy Implementation, Revalorization
REVIVING INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES THROUGH TEACHING AND LEARNING- THE CASE OF IGALA LANGUAGE (Published)
As important as language is in the existence of man, so it has its attendant issues since human beings exist in numerous linguistic and ethnic groups, the languages of larger groups overriding those of smaller groups for varied reasons. Countries of the world especially in Africa are made up of divergent linguistic and ethnic groups. Most of these multilingual countries have adopted the languages of their colonial masters as official languages. Policies across multilingual African countries have adverse effects on indigenous languages. In Nigeria, the adoption of English as the official language has created lack of interest in the country’s over 400 indigenous languages especially the so-called minority languages. Igala, one of the relegated languages needs to be maintained for group identity, interaction, transmission of culture and values, exploration and exploitation of the environment of the Igala people. A majority language in Kogi State, North Central, Nigeria. It is also spoken in other neighbouring States of Kogi. The mother tongue instruction of the National Policy on Education is considered among other recommendations as one way of ensuring the maintenance of Igala.
Keywords: Ethnic groups, Indigenous languages, Language policy, Mother tongue instruction, Revalorization