OCHIE Igbo STEM Project Inaugurated In Awka
By Chikaodi Chukwuleta
Odinala Cultural Heritage, Ochie-Igbo recently launched a project wherein Igbo Language will be the language of Instruction and evaluation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) across schools in the South East.
The STEM project, aimed at addressing the concerns raised by UNESCO that Igbo Language would no longer be in use by 2050, was launched in partnership with Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka.
Speaking during the inauguration of the committee to develop curriculum for STEM at ASUU-UNIZIK Secretariat, Awka, Executive Director of OCHIE Igbo STEM School, Okoro Chinedum Benedict, said the target of the project was to raise a generation of Igbo children who can innovate, conceive, invent and interpret phenomena in the Igbo language.
According to him, it will also take off on a virtual note targeting to enroll Igbo kids from all parts of the world.
“This way, the educational barriers and challenges associated with learning of sciences in our primary and secondary schools would be a thing of the past.
“Over the years, educationists, researchers, and curriculum development experts have argued that children perform better when taught in their mother tongue, hence the project,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Prof Charles Esimone, in his remarks, disclosed that the university has granted approval to partner with Odinala Cultural Heritage Foundation (OCHIE Igbo) for the development of education curriculum, where Igbo Language will be the medium of instruction and evaluation for basic sciences.
According to him, OCHIE Igbo and the Department of Curriculum and Methodology, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, have set about teaching Igbo children basic sciences in Igbo Language, anchored on the premise that children learn better when the language of instruction is in the mother tongue.
He commended the OCHIE Igbo Foundation for initiating the ideas, adding that the programme will help promote the use of mother tongue in modern technology.
In his keynote address, former Vice Chancellor, University of Nigeria Nsukka(UNN), Prof Chinedu Nebo, called on all universities in South East to make Igbo Language compulsory for students.
Nebo, who spoke on the topic, ‘The Potentials of Mainstreaming Igbo as the Language of Instruction and Evaluation for STEM in Igboland’, urged South East governors to make Igbo Language a test-run for those seeking government work in the region.
