TEACHER ATTITUDE AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN INDIGENOUS
Abstract
When the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1987 introduced the educational policy that
required study of one of the three national languages, i.e., Hausa, Igbo and Yorùbá, at the
West African School Certificate / General Certificate in Education [WASC / GCE] level,
Nigerians and especially advocates for the survival of the indigenous languages embraced
the idea with great enthusiasm. The primary aim was to make more Nigerians speak
indigenous languages in addition to the language of their immediate environment.
However, this purpose was frustrated when students opted for, and indeed registered for,
their mother tongues rather than a non-familiar indigenous language. If the policy had
been actually followed, the country would have generated citizens, who not only speak
their own indigenous languages, but also citizens who have a practical knowledge of all
of their country’s traditional languages. But this did not happen. In this paper, we look at
the attitudes of private school teachers to the teaching of the indigenous languages vis-avis the competence and performance of students in these indigenous languages. The study
is not only comparative but also correlative. The methodological instruments included a
questionnaire, interview, a quasi-test and examination of junior / senior secondary school
leaving certificates. Our findings revealed that students’ performances, as reflected in
their results, do not demonstrate their competence in the indigenous languages in
question. Similarly, we observed that both the teachers and the learners are instrumentally
and not integratively motivated.
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