Port Harcourt, Nigeria, 14th April 2022 - Policy Shapers, the youth-led public policy group leading the #ReformIELTS campaign which seeks the inclusion of Nigeria and other English-speaking African countries in the UK government’s Majority English Speaking Country (MESC) list, has shared additional data points in response to a recent message it received from the Home Office requesting extra information.
After writing a robust 15-page policy brief submitted to the Home Office on February 14, 2022, the group received an automatic message on March 15 from the Home Office saying it “cannot respond to external policy questions”. Policy Shapers went on to release a strongly-worded rejection of the UK’s “automatic message” which in turn, made the Home Office’s Simplification of Rules Taskforce (SORT) formally respond on March 31, 2022. In its response, the UK government acknowledged the work done by Policy Shapers in producing the brief. “Dear Policy Shapers Team, thank you very much for taking the time to put together this evidence pack for us, we will retain it for any future review of the MESC list.” The Home Office went on to say, “While we appreciate that the evidence you provided shows a generally significant level of English proficiency and literacy in Nigeria, it does not show that more than 51% of the population speak English as a first language…We continue to welcome any further evidence you can provide.”
Hearing this, the Policy Shapers team and its Advocacy Taskforce went to work again to produce a 5-page response letter to the UK Home Office providing additional public evidence and highlighting gaps in the MESC list policy. The group pointed out contradictions in messages received from the Home Office; it said the Home Office had earlier communicated on January 26 that the MESC list is “periodically reviewed and new countries are added…” but in its last message, the Home Office said, “for any future review of the MESC list” leaving this exercise to chance. The group also noted that the Home Office had told the BBC in July 2021 that the criteria for listing a country on the MESC is for “at least 51% of its population to speak English…” However, in its latest reply to the policy brief, the Home Office said “more than 51% of the population…” is the criteria. The group pointed out that “...more than 51% could mean 52%, 65%, 79%, or even 100%. We do not think it is logically acceptable to have a fleeting requirement for such an important foreign policy issue which costs Nigerians up to 5 billion naira annually.” The group also asked other important questions like, “When was the MESC list last reviewed? Which countries were recently added? And what form of public evidence was used to validate their inclusion?
In addition to highlighting these gaps, the group also shared three additional datasets from the World Bank, World Population Review, and the Global Economy Data portal which showed that between 1991 and 2018, the average literacy rate in Nigeria was 58.7% with a minimum of 51.08% in 2008 and a maximum of 70.2% in 2006. This average is still way above the Home Office’s 51% criteria. Policy Shapers also showed that as Nigeria’s population increases, the overall English proficiency and literacy rate would continue to improve. According to the Census Bureau of the United States, the population of Nigeria will surpass that of the United States in 2047, when the population of Nigeria would have reached an estimated 379.25 million. This, in addition to high rural-urban migration, proves that the already high levels of English literacy in the country are set to go even higher. World Bank data shows that between 1960 and 2020, Nigeria’s urban population has risen steadily by almost 55%.
Through its latest letter, which has Rt Hon Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, the Speaker of the House of Commons in copy, Policy Shapers believes it has proven beyond reasonable doubt that Nigeria deserves a spot on the MESC list. The group also recommended two steps to aid the Home Office in setting this policy reform in motion including, a cancellation of the IELTS test expiry clause and a drastic reduction in the cost of the test that resonates with the economic realities of the African continent.