The United States Agency for Development (USAID) has urged parents and community leaders to support early school learning in the mother tongue in order to improve education quality.
The chief of party USAID, Dr. Audu Liman, made the call in Bomala village in Kwami local government area of the state during the celebration of the 2021 International Mother Language Day at Bomala Primary School.
The International Mother Language Day is being celebrated on February 21 and the 2021 theme is ‘Fostering Multilingualism for Inclusion in Education and Society.’
“We want the child to master the Hausa language which is the mother tongue in Primary 1 to 3 before switching off to English. If we really want to improve the quality of education, we must take account of the mother tongue thereafter of other languages.
“Research has shown that this is the best way to teach a child, unfortunately, the parent is not doing it hence we encourage the parent 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 the school where they will learn English from primary one because it’s wrong,” he said.
The head teacher, Bomala Primary School, Malam Ba’ale Alhaji, commended the 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 storybooks provided by SENSE, they were encouraged.
