By Calista Oyeoba / Posted December 19, 2024
Professor Lateef Babatunde Ayeleru, the Director General of the Nigeria French Language Village (NFLV), has said in an interview preceding his imminent retirement, said he thought Nigeria missed out on some key benefits in francophone diplomacy as he reflected on the institution’s achievements and challenges.
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Ayeleru, who is nearing the end of his tenure as the DG of the NFLV, highlights that while the vision for the Language Village has largely been realized, there is still room for improvement. He disclosed that the Language Village was established as a response to the difficulties faced by students who could not afford to study abroad due to consequent language immersion programs, particularly in the 1990s.
Hence, the federal government established the NFLV; an initiative aimed to create a homegrown alternative for French and Arabic language studies. This tailor-made program, subsequently has attracted students from various Nigerian universities and colleges.
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Ayeleru, emphasizes the potential benefits Nigeria could gain from better relationship with its Francophone neighbors, including language dissimulation among the countries.
He highlighted that some of the challenges faced by NFLV has to do with funding, saying that due to the pressing economic downturn, the country and the citizens have their own problems which limits educational funding and revealed that the school cannot sponsor some of its programs.
He expressed that funding issues can be a significant challenge, especially when institutions are delisted from benefiting from interventions like the tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund), saying such delisting can impact institution’s capacity to deliver on its core mandate. Additionally, he said relying on external funding sources is an even more ordeal in recent times.
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However, while TETFund is focused on supporting only public tertiary institutions, the outgoing director general revealed that there have been ongoing efforts from the time of the previous Director, to enlist the inter university center into TETFund’s funding portfolio. He noted that the process as not been swift as expected because of required parliamentary backing.
NOTE: Calista is on Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) at DDNEWSONLINE.COM from the Department of Mass Communication, Ekocity Polytechnic, Lagos