News and updates, November 2025
Dear members of our informal Circle,
Webinar Series
After two successful webinars in our new series ’Conversations on Language Policy in Africa’, we are now taking a short break. The next one will take place on Friday, 9 January at 4 pm CET (that is also the time in Morocco, but – check your time zone!) Speaker will be Dr Yassine Boussagui of the Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, Morocco, who will talk about his article on Language Policy and Power Dynamics in Post-Independence Morocco.
After that, the conversations will take place on 6 February; 6 March; and 10 April.
Journal
A fifth article has been published of issue 2, volume 1 of Language Policy in Africa. It is by Cheick Ouedraogo and discusses obstacles to learning to read in primary schools in Burkina Faso. We welcome new submissions on an ongoing basis, but will finalize this second issue of the Journal before the end of the year.
Member publications
Billian Otundo has published an article on language use by Matatu touts in Kenya in Pragmatics and Society that may be of interest to some of you (not open access).
You may want to check out a publication that is open access, the massive Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising the Educational and Language Sciences, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta. Undersigned has a chapter in it, ‘Let’s Look at the Bigger Picture. Educational and Language Sciences in and on Africa or the Problem of the 2000 Languages’.
If you have a recent publication you would like other Circle members to be aware of, let me know!
New members
This time, we welcome three new members: Dr Adegboye Adeyanju, University of Abuja, Nigeria; Dr Célia Adriano Cossa Mutevuia, Universidade Pedagógica de Maputo, Mozambique; and Prof Dr Philippa Steele, University of Cambridge, UK. Prof. Steele writes: ‘my interests stem from working with minority writing systems, and I am particularly interested in indigenous epistemologies related to language, writing and communication. There is rather a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the history of communicative systems in Africa, and I am hoping to look more closely at the potential for restoring indigenous perspectives to (or "decolonising") grapholinguistics. I am looking forward to learning from others.’ If you are also interested in this, or know of others who are, it might be useful to reach out to her.
CfP opens
In February next year, there will be a new edition of the African Languages Conference. It will be a hybrid event, one part taking place in-person in Accra, the other part online. It is still possible to be a speaker there. Use this form.
Nigerian policy reversal
Many of you will have seen this already – the Nigerian government has reversed its 2022 policy on using Nigerian languages during the first six years of primary education – from now on, the policy is English-only. According to the Minister of Education, ‘Using the mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions.’ This was announced, by the way, at a conference organized by the British Council, which ‘pledged the council’s continued support and expertise to Nigeria’s education policies.’ Of course, one may wonder about the true importance of this, because Nigeria is known for its wide gap between policy and practice. However, the decision has sparked a sharp reaction. The Nigerian Academy of Letters calls it ‘dismissive of decades of research, expert consensus and public advocacy in favour of mother-tongue based bilingual education.’ See also this opinion piece by Lasisi Olagunju. Obviously, the debate is not yet over – it is good if concerned scientists speak out on these issues more.
Changes?
People change jobs, e-mail addresses, etc… - if you have recently changed your position, your information on the website may no longer be up-to-date. Please let me know if that is the case, we will then make the necessary corrections.
If you have information of this type or other information you would like to share, just drop me a line!
Best regards,
Bert (also on behalf of Comfort, Taiwo and Sarita).