By Abass Latifat
Over the years, there have been debates about the relevance of the oral English students who participated in senior secondary school exams are subjected to when it does not have specific relevance to the pronunciation of words in this part of the continent.
This debate was again brought to the fore when Kingsley Ugwuanyi an English expert and lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, in a recent newspaper interview questioned the rationale behind the education policy/curriculum in Nigeria. He expressed concerns about the situation that warrants the West African Examination Council ( WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board(JAMB), testing students on British-English based ‘Oral English’ which is completely out of touch to the students.
He also listed the requirements for us to have formally recognized Nigerian English like we have with American English. He noted that recognition will come Nigerians value the spoken english and promote it by teaching it and according it official recognition.
His words read, “The educational policy/curriculum in Nigeria which still favours British English needs to be revised, urgently. As I have pointed out elsewhere, it remains a grand irony that the West African Examination Council, National Examination Council and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board still test students on British-English-based ‘Oral English’, which is completely out of touch with the students’ daily linguistic realities. I strongly believe that this disconnect might be responsible for the interminable mass failure in English exams. Let’s stop waiting for external validation before we accept our own things. Let’s value our own English, teach it, and accord it official recognition.”
Answering to the question what does it require for us to have formally recognised Nigerian English like we have with American English?
Ugwuanyi said,’it requires first that we use it, value it and promote it by teaching it and according it official recognition. Then other things will follow. Do we know that there was a time in history when American English was regarded as anathema? But today, nobody remembers. In fact, English is what it is today because Americans have used their economic and military hegemony to propagate it. This point implies that Nigeria becoming more powerful on the world stage might help to popularise Nigerian English.”
