Ghana's Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has hinted the country is keen to promote the teaching and learning of the French Language in schools across the country.
According to him, various policies have been envisaged in this direction.
Speaking at the presentation of various materials and equipment by the Embassy of France in Accra, the Education Minister said "The current trend towards international co-operation, peaceful co-existence and technology transfer, necessitates that a person be able to communicate in a language that is understood by his or her neighbours"
He added in a country where its citizenry are able to communicate in at least two major international languages tend to have strategic importance in such areas as commerce and industry, science and technology, telecommunication, diplomacy and management
Dr. Prempeh noted since Ghana is surrounded by three Francophone countries, it makes the country fall under one of the only five English- speaking countries, with the majority of countries in the sub-region being French-speaking.
"It is in that respect that we have signed a Linguistic Pact with the International Organisation of la Francophonie in May 2018 and we are currently implementing an Action Plan for the country. Ghana is keen to promote the French language in our centres of learning and various policies have been envisaged in this direction" he stressed.
He said "Key among these policies are the reforms of school curricula, to include the teaching and learning of French at the primary level from B4 to B6 through a standard-based curriculum. The Common Core Programme yet to be launched will put more emphasis on an enhanced teaching and learning approach. Further, we have taken a step ahead of many countries to initiate a Bilingual School project on pilot basis, three years ago" he noted.
As part of its contribution to the learning and teaching of the french language, the French Embassy in Ghana donated some communication gadgets to Ghana’s Ministry of Education.
The items were presented by the French Ambassador to Ghana, Anne Sophie Ave.
She added she is confident the gadgets will help in the teaching and learning of the French Language in schools.
The items included 41 pieces of office 365 personal, 41 pieces of Epson EB-S41 projector, 41 pieces of HP 19 V193 monitor, 58 pieces of HP 290 G2 Dual Core 4GB 1TB Desktop, among others.
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Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith