Nationalism and Diversity

We often discuss in our class the subject of diversity in education. Many students often assume that diversity is the goal in education, but the beginning of chapter eighteen on education in Nigeria makes evident some of the cons of diversity in education. Nigeria has about 250 ethnic groups, but there are dominant groups that other groups fall under. According to this article, people tend to be more ethnocentric than nationalistic, which makes nationalism relatively uncommon or non-existent. The article mentions how in some European countries, having a common learning language as well as a national language fosters nationalism as well as a more unified country. The issue that arrises in very diverse places with large groups is the question of which languge to standardize, which culture to emphasize over another because that is generally how it would take place, especially if a party is in power that is identified primarily by the ethnicity of the members.
By emphasizing one languae a different group may see that as an imposition of another cultuer onto their own--especially in a place where people identify more with their ethnic makeup than they do with the nation state.
Nigeria had another difficult issue in addition to these being that there was no common link between the 250 languages and dialects in the country nor did that have common historical links to unify them except for Brittish occupation of the country. The one link for the nation is English which not only carries with it the memories of past oppression as well as cultural ideas and theories that the language caries.
I think that the Nigerian government made a respectable decision in making English the primary language in education and then requiring that the students learn three local languages.