Academic leaders have warned that systemic policy reversals, social prestige dynamics that favour English and a growing gap between federal guidelines and classroom practice are endangering Nigeria’s cultural heritage and undermining cognitive development in the education system.

The warning was given at the fifth conference of the International Association of Language Educators (IALE), hosted at Crawford University, Igbesa, Ogun State.

The conference, themed: ‘The question of medium of instruction in the quest for sustainable education,’ brought together linguists, scholars and university administrators to examine how Nigeria can transform its multilingualism from a perceived administrative obstacle into a driver of cognitive wealth and sustainable education.

Stakeholders at the conference called for an overhaul of how indigenous languages are taught and valued in the Nigerian education system, proposing three main strategies, which include establishing structured trans-languaging frameworks to teach complex concepts such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in mother tongues, creating economic incentives to combat societal stigma attached to local languages and deploying open-source educational technology tools and native artificial intelligence models to preserve under-resourced mother tongues across the country.

The keynote speaker, Prof. Graceful Ofoedu, said multilingualism must be recognised as national wealth rather than a systemic burden.

Ofoedu, a Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics at Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, said early childhood instruction in a child’s native language sharpens cognitive competence and critical thinking, and establishes a flexible base for future learning, adding that thrusting children directly into an unfamiliar foreign language creates a harsh transitional gap that leaves many struggling throughout their academic careers and ultimately contributes to Nigeria’s workforce employability crisis.

“If a learner starts with his or her mother tongue, the child’s thinking capacity is properly developed; His cognitive competence is sharpened, and comprehension is flexible. But when another language, which is foreign to that child is introduced, there is a kind of gap in transition,” she said.

She challenged educators to bypass bureaucratic delays through digital grassroots action rather than waiting indefinitely for state funding, noting that by creating indigenous language educational content on digital platforms, teachers can digitise local knowledge, monetise their expertise and export Nigerian cultural capital to the world.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Solomon Makinde, described the policy’s cancellation as a grave error that threatens the survival of indigenous languages.

He said the 2022 policy, which mandated native language instruction in early basic education, was celebrated as a vital step for cultural preservation, adding that its reversal represents a negative shift that undermines the highest form of language promotion, which is using a language as a medium of educational instruction.

Makinde also rejected the practice of labelling native Nigerian languages as vernacular, a term historically used to imply inferior or unofficial speech.

“My own language, Yoruba, is not inferior to any language,” Makinde declared, adding that Nigerian leaders should be able to address international bodies such as the United Nations in Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo, utilising real-time translation technology to project national sovereignty on the global stage.

The President of IALE, Prof D. O. Fakeye, said the association aligns with the Nigerian Academy of Education in opposing government’s stance, pointing to decades of research-backed evidence demonstrating how native mother tongues facilitate early cognitive development and foundational learning.

Professor of Communication and Language Arts at the University of Ibadan, Prof. Nkechi Christopher, said official mandates will achieve nothing unless Nigerian society actively increases the practical value of mother tongues in daily economic and civic life.

Christopher said there is a fundamental hypocrisy in the national debate, noting that while policymakers and middle-class advocates champion mother tongue policies in public, few choose to enrol their wards in schools that teach in local languages, as long as English remains the sole gateway to prestigious careers.