The Director, Education Support Services, Ministry of Education, Benue State, Mr Titus Anho has disclosed that teaching Indigenous Languages in schools would add value to the education of learners in the state.
The Director who made this disclosure while fielding questions from Day Break in his office in Makurdi, explained that, teaching of the local languages would enhance learning, stressing that it will enable the learners to learn faster.
” It is better people should start learning in their languages. People are making mistakes by teaching their children in the languages that are not theirs, and then it becomes a problem because some of the things you meet in those languages are not obtainable in your own language.
We have done some renovations. We are trying to change the current text books we have in English into Tiv language. For example we have General Mathematics and we are changing the entire concept into Tiv language. We intend to change the key subjects into Tiv language.”
Continuing, the Director maintained that the Ministry of Education in Benue State has contacted the National Institute for Nigerian Languages, stressing that the Institute gave a proposal to the ministry, indicating interest to train teachers in the state in indigenous languages on Graduate Conversion Programs, GCP.
The Educationist who called on schools to take advantage of the program which is domiciled with the Benue State University and Government Model College as centers and send their teachers for training for a specific period of time and be certificated to teach the indigenous languages.
” So we are urging schools to key into this policy, since it is no longer something that is optional again, it is compulsory that all schools must key in. We are going to monitor compliance by schools when the next session begins. So we are urging the general public and institutions who have existing staff to send them for this training.”
