Evaluating the Local Language Dimensions for Effective Teaching and Learning Sustainability in the Secondary Education System in Southeast Nigeria: Results from a Small-Scale Study

Abstract

The paper reports on a pilot study conducted with private and secondary schools in the southeast region of Nigeria to establish the impact of integrating the Igbo language into the secondary education system to ensure performance and language sustainability in the region. The aim is to measure the impact of using Igbo as the language of instruction combined with English language on academic performances and the perceived benefits, challenges and policy implications. The study, involving teachers and students drawn from two private and public secondary schools, employed a combination of quasi-experimental and survey methods for quantitative data collection. A performance assessment test of the students on Civic Education, a core subject in the Nigerian secondary education curriculum, revealed improved academic performances after adjusting for the effect of type of school and sex of students. Students taught with Igbo as the language of instruction supported with English performed better compared to those taught with English. The perceived benefits border on effective cognitive development, reducing learning poverty and strengthening of social relationships. However, the perceived challenges of suitably qualified teachers, infrastructure and suitable instructional materials will hinder effective implementation and transition. Careful planning and strategies will enhance the effective integration process.

1. Introduction

The United Nations strategic recommendation to achieve the 2030 sustainable development goal of equitable, inclusive and quality education is to adopt a bilingual or multilingual education system in contexts where there are two or more local languages (UNESCO, 2016) [1]. There are language variations among millions of students around the world both inside and outside of school. In Low- and Middle-income countries such as Nigeria, inappropriate language of instruction in schools is affecting an estimated 37% of the students (IIEP-UNESCO, 2021) [2]. UNESCO (2016) [1] reports that at least four in every ten students globally are taught in school using languages they do not know and instructional materials they do not understand. Data from Crawford et al. (2021) [3] show that most (over 90%) of the students in some countries are not taught in their local languages, and countries with the highest learning poverty use instructional languages in school, which only a few of the students speak and understand. Learning poverty relates to the inability of children to read simple text with comprehension and who do not meet minimum acceptable learning competences due to the failure of and poor learning outcomes (Azevedo, 2020; Crouch, Rolleston and Gustafsson, 2020 and World Bank, 2022) [4,5,6].

In sub-Saharan Africa, only about 5% of the students know the official language of instruction before they start school (UNESCO, 2016) [1] and the region has 87% of children in learning poverty, the highest in the whole world (Crawford et al., 2021) [3]. Nigeria has over 500 native languages (Akindele, Olatundun and Akano, 2022) [7] but has English (the colonial language of Britain) as its language of instruction (Danladi, 2013) [8]. The use of English other than the local languages as the language of instruction in Nigerian schools has hampered teaching and learning and is a major contributing factor to the poor quality of education and learning poverty (World Bank, 2019) [9].

Children within the secondary school age, 10–17 years, make up 23.1% of the Nigerian population (Sasu, 2022) [10] and 28.1% of this population are out of school (UNICEF, 2021; EPDC, 2022) [11,12]. The majority of those who make it to secondary school struggle with learning and are hardly qualified after secondary education to gain admission into tertiary institutions. Many studies have attributed this to only the problems of cultism, poor infrastructure in schools, lack of qualified teachers and poor funding (Odia and Omofonmwan, 2007; Ike, 2017; Olajire, 2019 and Aduwa, 2021) [13,14,15,16]. However, no study has considered the impact and implications of using English alone as the language of instruction in a multilingual multi-ethnic system like Nigeria. Beacco et al. (2015) [17], in a detailed report for the Council of Europe, emphasized the essential role of local language in the construction and application of knowledge, effective classroom communication, acquisition of subject-specific knowledge and acquiring a command of academic expression.

The Nigerian education system is made up of the primary, post-primary (secondary) and tertiary educations. The post-primary (secondary or second-level) education is made up of the junior and senior secondary education programs (Agim, 2009) [18]. The junior secondary education system is a 3-year upper basic curriculum and Civic Education is among the eleven compulsory core subjects offered at this level (Udofia, 2021) [19]. Civic Education was designed to foster and enhance national cohesion in a multi-cultural society like Nigeria (Ada et al., 2019) [20]. English language has been the language of instruction across the three tiers of the education system in Nigeria.

Recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria approved a new language policy that mandates the use of local languages as the languages of instruction in primary schools in Nigeria in place of English, the de facto language of instruction since the colonial era (Africanews, 2022; Al-Jazeera 2022 and The Guardian, 2022) [21,22,23]. Though no implementation strategy has been put in place, the new policy received overwhelming acceptance and approval. However, the Nigerian secondary school system continues to languish in the unprecedented state of neglect and poverty of education, remotely driven by the misplaced use of English as the sole language of instruction. Therefore, this study aims to access the impact and implications of adopting local languages as instructional languages alongside the English language as the second language of instruction in the Nigerian secondary education system. Accepting English as the second language of instruction will impact the students in two ways. The first implication is in enhancing the students’ transition from all-local language classes, as stipulated in the new language policy, to mixed Igbo and English as the language of instruction. The second implication is to enhance the transition of the student to the all-English (the national language) classes at the tertiary education level. This research is specific regarding southeast Nigeria which is a predominantly Igbo- speaking region of Nigeria and a prototype of other Nigerian regions with their prevalent local languages. The Igbo language is threatened with extinction with its cultural heritages and is the most at-risk language in Nigeria due to preference for the use of English in schools and other social activities in the region (Ani, 2012). Using the language in schools has been recommended as a means of preventing its extinction. It is the vision of the researchers that this pilot study will elicit policy actions towards sustaining the Igbo language heritage by improving the quality of teaching and learning in the Nigerian secondary school system in the region. Therefore, the key objectives of the study are to:

1.

Assess the impact of the local language on the academic performances of secondary school students.

2.

Ascertain the benefits of successful implementation of local languages as additional medium of instruction in the secondary education system.

3.

Identify the challenges to adopting the local Igbo language in teaching and learning in Nigeria’s secondary education system.

4.

Identify ways to effectively integrate and implement the local language into the secondary education system in southeast Nigeria.

2. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

2.1. Literature Review

The development of the modern society is achieved primarily through investment in school learning. According to Crawford et al. (2021) [3], policies that maximize the amount and quality of human capital development have so many benefits which are maximized through learning in school. Abadzi (2012) [24] posits that most often, teachers are erroneously accused of lacking requisite knowledge or teaching skills to teach or the students are not serious enough or are too disadvantaged to learn while the pertinent issue of language of instruction has not been considered. The language of instruction is strategic to effective teaching and learning and to overall human capital development.

There have been growing calls with convincing evidence and support for the promotion of local languages as languages of instruction to enhance teaching and learning (Banda and Kabubi, 2016) [25]. The United Nations, through the IIEP-UNESCO outreach programs have reiterated the need for countries with bilingual or multilingual backgrounds to consider the implementation of a bilingual or multilingual education system to enhance teaching and learning. IIEP-UNESCO (2021) [2] argues that since millions of children around the world do not speak the same language at home and in school, indigenous languages should be promoted as the language of instruction for effective access to quality education and learning outcomes. This re-echoes the UNESCO (2008) [26] assertion that the local language is the optimal language of instruction for literacy and learning.

Many research outcomes continue to point to the importance of the language of instruction in many countries across the globe in recent years. Peyton (2015) [27] noted that there are many reasons for students to maintain oral proficiency and literacy in their local language and for the local language to be used as the language of instruction in schools. Peyton insists that the students have a stronger sense of identity and self-belief when they are instructed in the language they understand and speak, and the teachers are more effective when they teach the students in their local language which they both speak and understand. The recommendation by Peyton (2015) [27] is for early childhood education up to the primary years. Similar studies also focused on primary and early childhood education (Kioko, 2015; Banda and Kabubi, 2016; Trudell, 2016; Yassin and Chaaban, 2021 and Smith, 2022) [25,28,29,30,31].

The use of local language in schools as the first language of instruction was implemented by the government of Mali through a pilot study in 1987. This was termed ‘Convergent Pedagogy’ (‘Pédagogie convergente’ in French), as reported by Bühmann and Trudell (2008) [26]. The policy and program were introduced to arrest the problems of failures, grade repetition, school dropout and student abandonment in a school system having French as the language of instruction. The local language was introduced as the first language of instruction throughout the primary school system while the French language, as the second language of instruction, was taught in such a way that the students became bilingual in fifth and sixth grades. The students at this stage learn contents of a subject in both the local language and French and examinations are administered in both languages. The results and performances of the students after the first six years showed that 77% of the Convergent Pedagogy students passed the national entry examination compared to the French-only students and this was also above the national average of 66%.

The positive outcomes of the pilot study in terms of improved performances of the students in Mali necessitated the generalization of the Convergent Pedagogy curriculum with over 2000 public schools nationwide, starting from 1994 and involving over ten local languages (UNESCO, 2006) [32]. As at the year 2000, the yearly average entrance examination scores for the Convergent Pedagogy schools have been consistently higher than those of the French-only schools across the regions (Traoré, 2001) [33]. Within this period, a national average of 68.57% was obtained in seventh grade entrance examinations from the Convergent Pedagogy schools against 52.34% from the monolingual French-only schools across eight regions in the country. These results show clear improvement in the performances of students when the local language is used as the language of instruction (Bühmann and Trudell, 2008) [26].

There is a successful outcome of the implementation of vernacular education in Papua New Guinea with 820 living languages (Papua New Guinea is the world’s most linguistically diverse country). Literacy and numeracy were taught in local languages to arrest the declining impact of the use of English as the language of instruction and the attendant rise in school dropouts and alienation of the nation’s youth (Bühmann and Trudell, 2008) [26]. Evaluation of the program revealed that the children who were taught literacy and numeracy in their local languages before entering the formal education system involving English as the language of instruction performed better in academics and had an easier transition to the formal education system than their classmates (Litteral, 2004 and Bühmann and Trudell, 2008) [26,34].

Abbott et al. (2014) [35] advocated the use of local language (mother tongue) beyond the elementary level of education along with the national language to facilitate effective participation in the global society while maintaining interaction and connection with families and communities. Other researchers such as Goldberg et al. (2009) [36], Babaci-Wilhite (2016) [37], Coleman and Capstick (2012) [38], Exploratorium (2015) [39], The Guardian (2017) [40] and World Vision (2018) [41] are of the opinion that the use of local languages as the language of instruction in post-primary (secondary-level education) should be for teaching mathematics and science subjects only. However, the use of local languages as the first language of instruction should not be limited to some selected subjects. This study is aimed to advocate, through evidence-based results, the use of local language as the first language of instruction with English language in secondary schools in the southeast region of Nigeria.

There are reports of successful implementation of two languages in the education systems of some regions and countries of the world. Coleman and Capstick (2012) [38] reported that a total of 75 different languages are used as medium of instruction in different states and regions in India’s education system. Specifically, Hindi and English are used in 32 out of the 35 states in the country as mixed language of instruction in the primary school education program. This bilingual education (Buchmann and Trudell, 2008) [26] experience in the majority of the states of India has also been strategically implemented successfully in countries like Mali (local language and French), Papua New Guinea (local language and English), and Peru (indigenous language and Spanish). A similar program was advocated for by Bonney (2015) [42] to use a mixture of local language and English to teach science at a lower primary school system in the Ohiamadwen district in Ghana. However, these bilingual education programs were designed for the primary school systems for effective cognitive development and transition to completely national language (monolingual) classes at later stages of the educational cycle. We envisage merits in the combination of the local language and English for instruction in the secondary school system in Nigeria with a particular focus on the southeast region.

2.2. Theoretical Framework

This study was guided by the Lev Vygotsky’s cognitive development theory. According to the theory, a child’s world is guided by language and children use language to express, experience and understand their world (Shah, 2020) [43]. Vygotsky’s main concern was on the relationship which exists between the development of thought and that of language, and the theory views language first as social communication, gradually promoting both language itself and cognition. Vygotsky views language to be critical to cognitive development, and with culture, plays an important role in human intellectual development and perception of the world (Nath, 2010) [44].

The teacher is central to Vygotsky’s theory whereby the role of the teacher is to identify the student’s mode of representation and through discourse, questioning, and interaction is able to provoke the student to forward thinking. The recognition of a student’s thinking is the student’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) while the teacher’s action to support the student in learning is called scaffolding (Johnson, 2014) [45]. According to Nath (2010) [44], the language being used is very essential in the student’s zone of proximal development as the language has strong influence on how the student interprets and builds understanding. These indicate that the local language which the student has been familiar with from birth and within the immediate environment plays an important role in the cognitive development of the student through classroom interaction with the teacher who uses the local language as the language of interaction. The local language of instruction enables the teacher to effectively recognize the student’s zone of proximal development and through scaffolding helps the student to easily comprehend and fully participate in classroom teaching and learning. This enhances the student’s learning development and overall participation and performance while connected to the family and society.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Design

This research is a pilot study aimed at assessing the impact of the bilingual education system on effective cognitive development of young secondary school students taught using the Igbo language as the medium of instruction supported by English. The study adopted a mixture of both quasi-experimental quantitative research design and cross-sectional survey research design. According to Thomas (2022) [46], the quasi-experimental research design is very useful in establishing a cause–effect relationship between research variables when participants are not randomly assigned, especially when comparing the impact of a program on an outcome such as school grades (see also, Chiang, Jhangiani, Price, Cuttler and Leighton, 2020) [47]. The cross-sectional survey design is a type of survey design in which data are collected from many different respondents at a single point in time based on inclusion and exclusion criteria (Thomas, 2022) [48]. Cross-sectional survey designs are very useful in population-based and clinical-based survey studies (Vega et al., 2021) [49].

3.2. Study Participants

Two secondary schools, one public and one private, were purposively selected for the experimental study. The two secondary schools are located in the Nsukka education zone of the southeast region and are consistent with their overall end-of-session outstanding performances in junior secondary one (JS1) Civic Education, from the yearly results available at the office of the chairman of the education zone. The end-of-academic session (promotional) examinations in all the primary and secondary schools are prepared and administered by the State Ministry of Education who oversees and strictly monitors the implementation of the subjects’ curricula and achievements of learning outcomes. The results of the promotional examinations are domiciled in all the zonal education offices under the ministry. Forty (40) JS2 students who scored 70% and above in the last promotional examination in Civic Education were drawn from each of the schools, which gives a total of 80 students for the experimental study. Additionally, a total of 28 JS2 teachers, 15 from the public school and 13 from the private school, completed the questionnaire on the benefits, challenges and implications of adopting local language as the language of instruction with the national language (English) in secondary schools. Therefore, there is a total of 108 participants for the study. Due to the level of exposure and usage, the teachers are proficient in English while the students could read, write and express themselves in the language.

Teachers will play significant roles in the adoption of the bilingual education program, mitigation of potential challenges and difficulties before and during transition to all-English higher education programs. This necessitated the survey part of the study, to gain insight, from the teachers’ perspective, the potential benefits, policy implications, challenges and mitigations of adopting the bilingual education program. Similar study by Akello and Timmerman (2018) [50] involving primary school teachers helped to identify, from teachers’ perspectives and experiences, the challenges and implications of adopting local language as the language of instruction. This led to the design and implementation of an action plan to mitigate the weaknesses and difficulties of the bilingual education program.

3.3. Data Collection and Analysis

Two sets of data were collected for the study. The first dataset comprises the performance scores of the students in the two schools who participated in an experimental language assessment. Consents and approvals were sought from the administrations of the two secondary schools who provided needed logistic supports and permissions for the students and teachers for the conduct of the language assessment experiment. The language assessment experiment was performed in three stages. The first stage was the random assignment of the participating students to any of the two groups (English-only and Igbo with English). The second stage was teaching and learning of the topic, ‘Self Reliance’ in Civic Education. The first group (English-only) were taught the topic by a teacher from the private school while the second group (Igbo with English) were taught the same topic with Igbo as the language of instruction supported with English by a teacher from the public school. The teaching lasted for 40 min for each group after which a performance assessment test, made up of 10 objective questions, was administered to the students. Administration of the performance assessment instrument and grading constituted the third and last stage. The 40 min is the designated duration (period) of one class lesson in the secondary school system under the State Ministry of Education. Self Reliance is a junior secondary 1 (JS1) topic, which ensures that the students have prior knowledge and have been tested on the topic in their previous examinations. One period was used for the assessment in order not to interfere heavily with the teaching and learning processes as the education system is still on the part of recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The students’ performances were graded over 100% and recorded.

The performance assessment instrument was made up of 10 objective questions developed from the topic and each question has five options; one of the options is the correct answer to the objective question and every correct answer carried a 10% mark. Prior to administration, the performance assessment instrument was tested for reliability and content validity. There were 21 items initially proposed for the performance assessment test. Five Civic Education teachers were appointed to examine the 21 items for sentence structure, spelling and suitability for face validity. The five teachers also rated each item based on the three-point scale of the Lawsche model (see Wilson, Wei and Schumsky, 2012) [51] which are: essential; useful but not essential, and not necessary, for content validity. The content validity ratio was determined for each item based on the number of teachers who indicated ‘essential’ for each item. Only 10 items with content validity ratio from 0.75 and above (Ramli et al., 2020) [52] were used for the study; the remaining 11 items were discarded. Data gathered with the 10-item performance assessment instrument from 12 junior secondary school students in another school in the same study area were analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha and yielded a reliability value of 0.825. The Igbo language component of the performance assessment instrument was face-validated by a professor of Igbo Linguistics for language structure and grammatical inconsistencies, among other issues.

The second set of data are responses to the opinion survey from a well-structured questionnaire which was used to elicit required information on the potential benefits, challenges and implications of adopting Igbo as the local language of instruction and English as the supporting language. The respondents are specifically all the JS2 teachers selected from the two participating schools. The choice of the teachers from the two secondary schools was consistent with the performances of the students from the two schools in the annual promotional examinations. Having a public and private school in the study also provided a needed opportunity to evaluate the opinions of the teachers from the two backgrounds on the concept of mixed Igbo and English languages for instruction. The questionnaires were distributed to the teachers the same day the language of instruction performance experiment and assessment of the students was conducted. The structured questionnaire consists of five distinct parts. The first part comprises the socio-demographic attributes of the participating teachers such as age, educational qualifications and others. The second part consists of items on the perceived benefits of using Igbo as the language of instruction and supported by English. The third part contains items on the policy implications of integrating Igbo language as the language of instruction in the secondary school education curriculum. The fourth part of the questionnaire involves items on the perceived challenges of implementing the use of Igbo as the language of instruction in a system that has been using English for over 50 years. The fifth component of the questionnaire comprises items on ways to effectively implement the use of the Igbo language as the language of instruction with English in secondary schools in the southeast region of Nigeria and the nation as a whole. The second, third, fourth and fifth components contain Likert scale-type of response options ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

The questionnaire items were drawn from an extensive literature review on the successful adoption of bilingual modes of instruction. In order to engage the questionnaire for the survey, suitability of the questionnaire for the study was subjected to face validity after which the instrument was tested for internal consistency using the Cronbach’s alpha technique. According to Ramli et al. (2020) [52], face validity is the process of evaluating a survey instrument with focus on the sentence structure, grammatical construction, question interface and other issues. The evaluation of the survey instrument further helped in early detection and modification of ambiguous, misunderstood and/or misinterpreted question items (Stangor, 2015 [53]). The use of the instrument requires that survey items are relevant, meaningful, unambiguous, non-judgmental and easy to answer (Connell et al., 2018) [54]. Therefore, the face validation involved three professors of social science education. The third component of the questionnaire on ‘policy implications’ was added on recommendation during face validity; six items were removed for lack of relevance and ambiguity while nine items were modified to suit the construct of interest. The final instrument, made up of five components and 49 items, was tested for internal consistency with data collected from 10 teachers in the University of Nigeria Nsukka Secondary School. A Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.706 was obtained for the instrument.

The first set of data from the performance assessment test were analyzed using two-way multivariable analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) where type of school and sex of the students are the covariances and their effects on the language performance assessment are controlled through ANCOVA. The socio-demographic data of the teachers were analyzed using the bivariate chi-square with type of school as the independent factor. The Likert scale-type responses were analyzed using t-test, mean and standard deviation. All tests of significance were conducted at 0.05 level of significance and a p-value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Data analysis was facilitated by IBM SPSS version 26, United States.

3.4. Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical approval for the study was sought and obtained from the Faculty of Education Research Ethics Committee of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Approvals were also sought and obtained from the administrative boards of the two secondary schools used for the study. Additionally, informed written consent of the participating students and teachers were also obtained through a consent form which each participant was given to read and sign after the study procedure and objectives had been explained to them and assurance of confidentiality of data and other information was granted. The names of the participating schools will be kept anonymous in the study since the data will be available to the public through the journal.

4. Results

The multivariable two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the effect of students’ language groups on the performance scores of the students taught Civic Education using English alone (English-only group) and the students taught with the Igbo language supported by English (Igbo with English group). Prior to adopting the multivariable ANCOVA, the performance scores’ data were tested for the relevant assumptions of normality and equality of variance. The Levene’s test for equality of variance gave a value of 0.0003 with p-value of 0.93 which indicates that there is equality of error variance of the performance scores across the study groups. Therefore, the assumption of homogeneity of variance is not violated. The normality assumption was conducted with the Skewness and Kurtosis test. The value of Skewness is 0.455 and that of Kurtosis value is 0.308, which are less than 1.0, indicating that the language performance score data are normally distributed. The equality of the error variance and the normal distribution of the performance scores both confirm the use of the multivariable ANCOVA for the analysis of the language performance data.

4.1. The Impact of Local Language on Academic Performances

The multivariable two-way ANCOVA tests the significance of difference in mean performance scores of the two groups of students with English-only and the students taught with Igbo with English. However, the type of school attended by the student and the sex of the student may influence their performances. Therefore, the sex (male and female) and type of school attended (private and public) by the students are the covariates while study group (English-only and Igbo with English) is the factor whose effect is being measured. This gives the two-way multivariable ANCOVA. The mean language performance scores are presented in

Table 1. Descriptive Results for Language Performance Scores.

Group	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
English-only	41.45	9.279	40
Igbo with English	71.48	6.965	40
Total	56.46	17.166	80
Skewness	0.445	0.269
Kurtosis	0.308	0.232

for the two study groups. The Igbo language with English study group achieved a higher mean performance score (71.48) compared to the mean performance score (41.45) for the English-only group. The standard deviation for the Igbo with English group is about 30.0% lower than the standard deviation for the English-only group. This shows that the performance scores of the Igbo with English study group are closer than the performance scores of the English-only study group.

The results of the effect of the study group on the language performance scores while adjusting for the effect of type of school and sex of the students are presented in

Table 2. Results of ANCOVA Tests Between Subjects’ Effects.

Source	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	p-Value	Partial Eta Squared
Corrected Model	19,011.067 a	3	6337.022	112.821	0.000	0.817
Intercept	8992.278	1	8992.278	160.094	0.000	0.678
Sex	35.742	1	35.742	0.636	0.428	0.008
School	924.418	1	924.418	16.458	0.000	0.178
Group	18,030.013	1	18,030.013	320.998	0.000	0.809
Error	4268.821	76	56.169
Total	278,321.000	80
Corrected Total	23,279.887	79

^a. R Squared = 0.817 (Adjusted R Squared = 0.809).

. The results show that there is significant difference in language performance scores [F(1, 76) = 320.998, p = 0.00] between the study groups while adjusting for sex and type of school. The partial Eta squared value indicates the effect size is compared with the Cohen guideline for the effect size where a value of 0.2 = small effect, 0.5 = moderate effect and 0.8 = large effect. The effect size for study group is large (80.9%), which shows how much of the variance in the language performance scores is explained by study group (this is the same as the adjusted R-square for regression analysis).

The results also show the influences of the covariates, type of school and sex. Sex of the students [F(1,76) = 0.636, p = 0.428] has no significant impact on the language performance scores of the study groups while type of school [F(1,76) = 16.458, p = 0.00] has significant influence of the language performance scores. The partial Eta squared shows that sex accounted for only less than 1% (0.8%) of the total variation in the language performance scores while school type accounted for 17.8%. This large amount of variation in language performance scores accounted for by the type of school implies that the unexplained variation has been reduced to 4268.821 units (the error sum of squares). Therefore, by control for the effect of sex and type of school, the study group was found to significantly influence the performance of the students in the language study. The students taught using the Igbo language with English performed significantly better than the students taught using English only as the language of instruction.

4.2. Demographic Characteristics of Teachers

The association of type of school on the demographic characteristics of the participating teachers were analyzed using the chi-square measure of association at 0.05 level of significance and the results are summarized in

Table 3. Teachers’ Demographic Characteristics and Type of School.

Demographic Characteristics	Chi-Square	p-Value
Age of teacher	14.175	0.007
Marital status	2.967	0.085
Number of years of teaching experience	9.045	0.029
Highest teaching qualification	0.675	0.714

. There is significant difference (p < 0.05) in age of the participating teachers due to type of school (private and public) with chi-square value of 14.175 and p-value of 0.007. The teachers in the private school are much younger than the teachers in public school. Number of years of teaching experience is also significant (p < 0.05) according to the type of school with chi-square value of 9.045 and p-value of 0.029. This shows that years of teaching experience depends on the type of school. The teachers from the public school have longer years of teaching experience than the private school teachers, the majority of who are in their first five years of teaching experience. Marital status and highest teaching qualification were found not to depend on the type of school the teacher was selected from.

4.3. The Perceived Benefits of Using Igbo as the Language of Instruction with English

The means of the responses for the public and private school teachers on the perceived benefits of adopting the Igbo language as the language of instruction were compared with the 2.50 cut-off mark for the four-point Likert scale. An item with mean response greater than or equal to 2.50 indicates that the teachers agreed that the item is a perceived benefit of adopting the Igbo language with English for teaching in secondary schools. The results show that the mean scores are high enough and shows that both the private and public secondary school teachers agreed on the perceived benefits of the use of the Igbo language and English. However, the mean responses for the public secondary school are consistently higher, indicating that the public secondary school teachers are more inclined to the perceived benefits of the language program than their counterparts.

The t-test was used to test the mean responses of the private and public teachers on the perceived benefits of using Igbo as the language of instruction with English. The t-test measured if there is any significant difference in the mean responses of the private and public schools’ teachers on the benefits of a bilingual mode of instruction in secondary schools with Igbo as the first language of instruction. The results are summarized in

Table 4. T-Test Results for Benefits of Using the Igbo Language with English for Instruction.

Use of Igbo with English Will:	Mean	t-Value	p-Value
Promote higher learning outcomes	(3.60, 3.17)	1.536	0.137
Increase the rate of completion of secondary education	(3.67, 3.33)	1.521	0.141
Reduce the number of out-of-school children	(3.33, 3.25)	0.391	0.699
Improve academic performances	(3.08, 3.06)	0.219	0.898
Enhance students’ cognitive development	(3.53, 3.17)	0.036	0.951
Enhance reading, learning and comprehension	(3.31, 3.20)	1.544	0.135
Impact other aspects of student development	(3.67, 3.08)	2.352	0.029
Improve social relationship	(3.58, 3.33)	1.291	0.209
Promote learning in all academic subjects	(3.40, 2.92)	1.764	0.090
Strengthen teacher–student interaction	(3.50, 3.40)	0.397	0.695
Allow teacher to build on students’ prior knowledge	(3.53, 3.42)	0.462	0.648
Improve education outcomes in the long run	(3.58, 3.20)	1.621	0.117
Give students a stronger sense of identity	(3.06, 3.08)	0.054	0.957
Make teachers more effective in communicating with the students	(3.13, 2.83)	0.879	0.388
Enhance participation in a global society	(3.40, 3.25)	0.691	0.496
Promote interaction with families and communities	(3.47, 3.17)	1.147	0.262
Build confidence in the students	(3.20, 3.17)	0.115	0.910

. The mean responses are in brackets (Column 2); first is the mean responses of public secondary school teachers, then private school teachers. The t-test results with p-values greater than 0.05 level of significance (p > 0.05) imply that the responses of the teachers in the private and public secondary schools are not significantly different on the items being the benefits of using Igbo with English to teach in secondary schools. The responses of the two groups of teachers differed significantly (p < 0.05) on the impact of the adoption on other aspects of the students’ development. The mean scores show that the public teachers agreed more to the benefit of developing other aspects of the students.

4.4. The Perceived Policy Implications of Using Igbo as the Language of Instruction with English

The mean responses of the public secondary school teachers on policy implications ranged from 3.47 to 3.67 while those of the private secondary school teachers ranged from 2.50 to 3.50. These mean responses on policy implications show that the private and public secondary school teachers agreed to the policy implications being considered in this study. However, the public secondary school teachers consistently have higher mean responses than the private school teachers, indicating that the public secondary school teachers are more inclined to the policy implications than the private school teachers.

The t-test results for policy implications of the language integration are summarized in

Table 5. T-Test Results for Policy Implications of Using the Igbo Language with English for Instruction.

Policy Implication	Mean	t-Value	p-Value
Good policies will promote access to quality education	(3.20, 3.08)	0.483	0.626
Good policies will promote equity and retention	(3.67, 3.17)	2.152	0.041
Teaching will allow use of effective student-centered pedagogy	(3.53, 2.67)	3.860	0.001
Will promote efficient and cost-effective provision of education	(3.53, 3.50)	0.166	0.870
Will reduce learning poverty	(3.60, 2.67)	4.191	0.000
Will increase the efficiency of other educational investment	(3.60, 3.42)	0.927	0.364
The policy will reflect a stronger commitment to regional identity	(3.47, 2.50)	4.809	0.000
It will reflect a new regional direction	(3.67, 3.00)	3.178	0.004
Engender real economic values of language proficiency	(3.60, 2.83)	3.672	0.001
Will influence teacher development and deployment	(3.47, 3.50)	0.166	0.870

. There are significant differences (p < 0.05) between the responses of the public and private secondary school teachers on the policy implications of the language adoption recommendation. The views of the teachers differ significantly on the implication that the policy will: promote equity and retention, allow use of effective student-centered pedagogy, reduce learning poverty, reflect stronger commitment to regional identity and reflect new regional direction.

4.5. The Perceived Challenges of Using Igbo as the Language of Instruction with English

The results of the perceived challenges to the implementation of the Igbo language as the first language of instruction combined with English are presented in

Table 6. T-Test Results for Challenges to Using the Igbo Language with English for Instruction.

Perceived Challenges	Mean	t-Value	p-Value
Lack of well-trained teachers for language-based teaching and learning	(3.50, 3.40)	0.441	0.664
High cost of providing textbooks and learning materials	(3.53, 3.42)	0.584	0.564
Availability of suitable and relevant instructional materials	(3.60, 3.33)	1.197	0.242
Enacting suitable implementation policies	(3.73, 2.96)	3.763	0.001
Political will to initiate and sustain the implementation policy	(3.53, 3.08)	1.633	0.115
Sufficient infrastructure	(3.60, 3.330)	1.197	0.242
Overcrowding of classrooms of instruction	(3.53, 3.25)	1.295	0.207

. The mean responses of the public secondary school teachers ranged from 3.20 to 3.67 and from 2.50 to 3.50 for private secondary school teachers. These mean scores show that the teachers agreed on the items as the perceived challenges to the effective implementation of the Igbo language with English program. Again, the mean responses of the public secondary school teachers are consistently higher than those of the private secondary school teachers, indicating that teachers from the public secondary schools identify the challenges more. The results of the t-test of the significance of the difference in mean responses shows that the two groups of teachers differ significantly (p < 0.05) on enacting suitable implementation policies. Though the mean scores are above the cut-off, the significant difference indicates that the private secondary school teachers did not consider it as much of a challenge than the public secondary school teachers did.

4.6. Ways for Effective Implementation of the Bilingual System of Instruction

The results for ways for effective implementation of the bilingual language of instruction in secondary schools are presented in

Table 7. T-Test Results for Ways to Effectively Implement Use of the Igbo Language with English for Instruction.

Effectives Ways for Implementation	Mean	t-Value	p-Value
Ensure whole-school implementation	(3.73, 3.25)	1.328	0.280
Strong support from school management	(3.53, 2.92)	1.238	0.340
Continuous coaching and monitoring to help teachers for easy implementation	(3.60, 2.92)	1.720	0.125
Students’ families are aware of the policy and offered support materials	(3.60, 3.33)	1.375	0.181
The students are assessed regularly	(3.73, 3.42)	1.667	0.103
Providing quality learning and instructional materials	(3.58, 3.66)	0.801	0.431
Ensure government support on infrastructure	(3.41, 3.39)	0.375	0.711
Clear and implementable curriculum	(3.31, 3.01)	0.362	0.711

. The results show that the mean responses for public secondary school teachers ranged from 3.31 to 3.73 while those of private secondary school teachers ranged from 2.92 to 3.66. The public and private secondary school teachers agreed on the effective ways for the implementation of the Igbo language as the language of instruction in Nigeria with the support of the English language. The t-test results show that there is no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the mean responses of the public and private secondary school teachers on the effective ways to implement the use of the Igbo language with English in secondary education in southeast Nigeria.

5. Discussion

As pointed out by Thomas, Apolloni and Parry (2018) [55], teaching a student and a student learning contents using unfamiliar language is challenging, therefore, the teacher– student interaction is key, not only in modeling the student’s intellectual achievements but also in ensuring the student’s continued use of the local language. Education practices in most parts of the world, and as advocated by different studies, are moving away from the strict language separation and insistence in use of foreign language as the medium of instruction towards models which allow, promote and encourage the use of mixed languages in class (Lewis, Jones and Baker, 2012) [56]. The use of local language as the first language of instruction along with another language (the national language in this case) reflects the learner’s real-life experiences and ensures to enrich the learner with the experience of being taught in a familiar language while ensuring the student is confidently bilingual (Thomas, Apolloni and Parry, 2018) [55].

The average performance of the students taught Civic Education content using Igbo as the first language of instruction and supported with English is higher than the average performance of the students taught the same content using only English as the language of instruction. This significant difference in the performances after adjusting for school and sex influences shows that the students gained more when taught Civic Education content in the local Igbo language mixed with English than when the same content was taught only in English. The advantage in academic performances achieved through the use of Igbo as the medium of instruction along with English, not only emphasizes the students’ eagerness to learn in their familiar language, but enhances the learning ability and capacity of the students. Sipra (2013) [57] showed that the use of English-only in classes in Saudi Arabia may lead to disturbances for language activity in classes as both students and teachers were at ease with Arabic language in classes. The teacher translates related English terms to the Arabic language for better and easier classroom communication.

Bacha (2019) [58] obtained different results in an exploratory study on teachers’ and students’ views on the use of local Arabic language and English for classroom instruction in pre and university education in Lebanon. A good number of the students and teachers strongly identified with bilingual education in French and English, two foreign languages, as media of instruction at pre and university education. This gives credence to earlier studies that the students preferred the western languages as more prestigious than their local languages. This is a challenge to the adoption and implementation of local language as medium of instruction as the students do not believe it is as prestigious as the foreign language (Zakharia, 2009 and Orr and Annous, 2018) [59,60]. The issue of foreign languages being more prestigious is more pronounced among the private schools who are more preoccupied with impressing their clients by imbibing more of the foreign education culture. The IIEP-UNESCO (2021) [2] report called this “colonization of the consciousness” of Indigenous people, causing them to devalue their language and culture and therefore, reject to teach or be taught using local language in the classroom.

The perceived benefits (or advantages) of adopting the Igbo language as the language of instruction with English were identified by the teachers. Crawford et al. (2021) [3], in their World Bank report on use of Indigenous language policy, identified promotion of better learning outcomes, impact of other educational development and development of cognitive abilities as some of the benefits of use of local languages as language of instruction in schools. The use of local language as the language of instruction has positive effects on the performances of the students across the educational curricula. Crawford et al. (2021) [3] presented evidence from across Africa and other parts of the world in countries like south Africa, Somalia, Mali, Cameroon and Peru, among others, of the positive impacts of use of local language for instruction. For instance, a study in Uganda revealed that students who were taught with local language as the language of instruction were able to identify 20 letters and seven words per minute each while students taught with the second (foreign) language identified only six letters and one word per minute each (Brown, 2011) [61]. There are also long-run benefits of improving educational outcomes. This is because students who are taught in their local language with English have an easier transition in higher institutions where English is the major language of instruction.

Introducing the Igbo language as the language of instruction along with English will reduce the number of out-of-school children in the southeast region of Nigeria. The use of language of instruction which is not familiar to the children from home and community affects the learning abilities of the children who drop out of school due to the challenges of comprehension and retention (Ball, 2014) [62]. Reduction in the number of out-of-school children has been achieved in regions, cities and countries where the local languages have been adopted as the medium of instruction in primary and secondary education systems (Zafeirakou, 2015) [63]. Success of introducing local languages as the first language of instruction has increased the number of enrolments in countries like Mali, Papua New Guinea and Peru, as reported by Bühmann and Trudell (2008) [26]. Though the southeast region has the lowest number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, there are still over 200,000 out-of-school children in the region (Federal Ministry of Education, 2019) [64], which is a disturbing record. The problem is not poverty because all the states in the region provide free primary education and junior secondary education is free in some of the states. In most cases, the children drop out of school after repeated poor academic performances and believe they are not meant to be in school and have to pursue their career in other areas such as trade and crafts. This explains why there are children of school age as working as apprentices in shops and workshops, while some others are roaming the streets (Okoh et al., 2020) [65]. Adopting the bilingual language of instruction policy will positively impact the number of out-of-school children in the region.

Perceived challenges to the adoption and implementation of the Igbo language as the first language of instruction with English were identified to include the availability of instructional and teaching materials, teachers trained for local language-based instructions, cost of providing books and other instructional materials specific to the needs of the language innovation, infrastructure and policy implementation. Lack of well-trained teachers to handle student-centered pedagogy in the local language combined with English is a major challenge if the Igbo language program is to be implemented in the study area. Without suitably qualified teachers, a program of this nature may be set up to fail. The problem of qualified teachers in the language program scenario affects the program in many places where it is being implemented. The IIEP-UNESCO (2021) [2] report identified the deficit of qualified teachers who could speak both the local and national languages and be able to teach in bilingual schools as a problem of continental magnitude in Latin America. Moreover, lack of resources, a weak education system, language-related teaching materials, among others, are hindering effective integration of the Indigenous languages and culture into the education system in Latin America and other parts of the world.

The perceived ways to effectively implement the Igbo language as the medium of instruction were identified by the respondents to include teacher training, school management support, regular student assessment, provision of suitable infrastructure, parental support and provision of instructional materials, among others. A similar language program was implemented in Uganda in 2007 through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC). Teachers were trained in student-centered pedagogy, schools were provided relevant language-based instructional materials and the students were regularly assessed while district inspectors were trained to monitor and offer curriculum support to teachers (Acana, Kyagaba, Opman, Omala, Jumanyol and Sserunkuma, 2010) [66]. Akello and Timmerman (2018) [50] made similar findings in a related study in Uganda conducted in 2018. Teachers’ proficiency in the local language, equipping the teacher with skills to teach in the local language as well as provision of instructional materials and regular continuous assessment, were identified to be strategic in successful implementation of the local language policy.

6. Conclusions

The age and number of years in the teaching profession of the private and public secondary school teachers are significant factors in evaluating the impact of using the Igbo language as the first language of instruction with English in the secondary school education system in southeast Nigeria. Most of the private secondary school teachers are less than 30 years of age and have less than five years of experience in teaching as compared to the public secondary school teachers who are older and have spent more years in the profession. The lack of experience, low knowledge level and low adoption capacity have a strong impact on their responses to critical issues concerning adoption of the local Igbo language for instruction in secondary schools in the region. This manifested in the consistently higher mean responses to the perceived benefits, policy implications, challenges and ways for effective implementation.

The ANCOVA results indicated significant difference in the language performance assessment scores of the students taught Civic Education using English-only and those taught in the Igbo language supported by English. The performances were influenced by the type of school (private and public) from which the participating students were drawn but not by the sex of the students. Implementing the use of the Igbo language as the first language of instruction may encounter some difficulties in the private schools due to the perceived low performances by the students and low impressions from the teachers. The Igbo language integration as the language of instruction supported with English will be more accelerated in public schools than in private schools.

The perceived benefits of language integration into the education system are enormous as well as the policy implications. However, the perceived challenges such as lack of suitably qualified teachers, infrastructure and suitable instructional materials, will hinder the effective implementation and integration of the Igbo language into the secondary school education system in the region. Careful planning and implementation through well-orchestrated strategies, taking into consideration the perceived challenges, will enhance an effective integration process. Moreover, studying the plans and strategies of countries and regions which have implemented the same curricula, taking note of their mistakes and successes, will soften the transition process and increase Igbo language usage and the achievement level.

It is important to note that this study has certain limitations and that a sample of 80 students, 28 teachers and two schools may not be representative of all students and secondary schools and therefore, the findings may not be generalized. Though this study does not have wide coverage of all the states and provinces in the southeast region, it is part of a pilot project aimed at assessing the impact of bilingual education in fostering effective cognitive development of young secondary school students. The pilot nature of this study may impose some limitations in the generalization of the results and outcomes of this study, and may limit the strength of the conclusions thereof. A large-scale study with wider coverage may be required for in-depth exploration of an area of strategic to cognitive development to complement the present findings. There may be potential negative effects, but following the successful implementations of the bilingual program in other countries, though only in the primary education system, we believe that the merits will outweigh the demerits.

The choice of schools and students in this present study were based on previous performance grades in the subject of evaluation. However, the study did not consider the students’ speed of learning, especially in the subject of evaluation, as an indicator of suitability to participate in the study. We indicate that this could impact the study’s outcomes. Further studies with wider coverage should consider this dimension of participants’ similarity. Additionally, further studies should consider standardizing the performance assessment instrument before measurements are made.