

To be a Nigerian college student typically means to have been studying in English at least since the start of elementary school. It’s insulting.”Įnglish is the official language of Nigeria, and both in the country’s colonial era and since independence from Britain in 1960, it has been the country’s standard language of instruction. And here we are being asked once again to prove our worth. “To get into any Nigerian university you must have passing grades in English. “When I was young and in school, we were penalized for speaking what was called the ‘vernacular,’” meaning any of Nigeria’s many Indigenous languages. “I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that this was a case of racism, but right from the start I felt that this is not right,” he said in an interview. Since then, with some success, Igbalajobi has led a social media campaign to prod universities in Canada and the United States with such requirements to lift them for Nigerian students.

Moment of inertia of a sphere how to#
As a native of Nigeria, he often found himself fielding questions from young people from his country about how to further their studies in the West.Īmong the many barriers they reported facing, from absurdly difficult to obtain visas to the scarcity of financial assistance, one seemed especially irksome: Students from Nigerian universities were commonly being told that they had to pass an English language test as part of their application just for the mere honor of being considered. Early this year, a bug seemed to have bitten Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi, a postdoctoral fellow in mycology at Canada’s University of British Columbia.
