GS Igbo: Better late than the late

Abstract

The genesis of the university studies sprang from the insatiable human cravings for knowledge. The word University comes from two Latin words uni (dative case of unus), meaning “one” and versus meaning; in the direction of, towards. Universus means towards one-a whole, the whole of existing things, everything that is, the whole of reality, also a consideration of all things as forming a whole creation. The Latin suffix itas (genitive itatis), connotes a condition of being united. This is why universitas signifies a state of things united to form a whole. It can also express a quest to comprehend the universe. This paper sees this conference as a welcome development. The neglect of “Mother tongue” has always been viewed as a dangerous signal in the advancement of scholarship in Africa, since the advent of the Western education. The problem of course-specialization in the Nigerian Universities; ought to be reviewed because every university with a strong scientific bias, tends towards a vitiated idea and consequently leads to a one-sided knowledge borne out of the illusion that education can always be better reduced to the shallow focus of specialist research, and ignores the wider horizon which reflects the etymology. Bearing in mind the huge functionality of language in educational foundation that would in turn lead to the holistic roundedness of the human dynamics, the question of upholding Igbo as a G.S. Course in the Universities of the South-East and other regions where Igbo stands as an indigenous language would become a desideratum