Nigeria (Reuters) – Unidentified gunmen abducted 27 students and some staff and their family members in an attack overnight on a secondary school in Nigeria’s Niger state, the state governor’s spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The assailants stormed the Government Science college in the Kagara district at around 2 a.m., overwhelming the school’s security detail, according to local residents.

The state governor ordered the immediate closure of boarding schools in the area.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.

President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the raid and dispatched security chiefs to coordinate rescue operations, his spokesman said.

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram and a branch of Islamic State are active in northern Nigeria, but kidnappings by other armed groups – mostly for ransom – are also common.

Gunmen also stormed a secondary school in northwestern Katsina state two months ago and kidnapped nearly 350 boys, who were subsequently rescued by security forces.

About 100 of more than 270 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from the town of Chibok in 2014 are still missing.

Such attacks have raised concerns about rising violence by Islamist insurgents and armed gangs and fuelled widespread criticism of Buhari’s handling of national security. In January, the president appointed a new military high command.

Violence and insecurity have compounded the economic challenges faced by citizens in Africa’s most populous country, which is struggling to cope with a fall in revenues due to an oil price slump on top of COVID-19.

Source: Reuters

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Morocco ranked 74th in the world in the list of the English Language Proficiency Index, issued by the EF Foundation, which described the level of English aptitude in the Kingdom as low.

According to the index, the English proficiency level is up by 58.25% for females, whereas the same index indicates only 55.63% when it comes to males.

Morocco also ranks low amongst African countries, as it ranked 6th in the continent, coming below South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, then Tunisia and Ethiopia, at an average rate of 453 points.

Regarding Africa, the report stated as follows: “The European colonial powers have always maintained close connections with Africa, especially France, but the country that is currently leading the newest wave of foreign investment in the continent is China,” adding: “Today, Africa is teeming with huge infrastructure projects; over 320 new consulates and embassies were opened in the same continent between 2010 and 2016. However, its history remains affected by violence and persecution to this day, and better mastery of the English language will help foreign investors and African partners to reach more transparent contracts and a smoother collaboration.”

“The colonial history in Africa has linked the languages of the colonizers ​​to high social levels in the minds of many Africans, resulting in local schools giving priority to teaching English or French rather than teaching local languages more often.” The report stated further.

And it was stressed that: “The time has come to stop this practice, as a significant number of researches shows that children who are not taught to read and write in their mother tongue suffer permanent consequences; in spite of this, almost all countries in Africa still use colonial languages ​​as a language of instruction, with the exception of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tanzania.”

And according to a recent study that included 12 schools in Cameron which switched from educating in English to doing so in the country’s mother tongue, the students of the aforementioned schools showed better performance and results in all subjects after five years, including English.  Moreover, Kenya began offering Swahili lessons in primary schools this year, although much of education there remains in English.

As for the countries ranking highest in the FLP index, Netherlands topped the list with a total of 652 points, followed by Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Austria, then Portugal and Germany, followed by Belgium and Singapore.

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