The French Embassy in Ghana has on behalf of the Government and people of France donated some Communication Gadgets to Ghana’s Ministry of Education.
The donation was made on Friday, September 4, 2020, at the Education Ministry in Accra.
Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh received the donation on behalf of the Ministry.
The items presented by the French Ambassador to Ghana, Anne Sophie Ave, 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.
In a brief remarks to receive the items, Dr. Opoku Prempeh thanked the French government for the benevolent gesture.
According to him,
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.
An ability to be able to communicate in at least two major international languages has strategic importance in such areas as commerce and industry, science and technology, telecommunication, diplomacy, management etc, he said.
Geographically, he stated Ghana is surrounded by three French-speaking countries, with the sea bordering us on the south.
In the West African sub-region, according to him, Ghana is one of only five English- speaking countries, with the majority of countries in the sub-region being French-speaking so it particularly imperative and in its national interest to take the learning of French important, as this will give our country huge advantage and leverage in trade and commerce.
” 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. Key amongst 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 said.
” Ghana and France have over the years enjoyed warm and cordial relations and cooperation in several fields of endeavour, including education, and today, we are witnessing yet another manifestation of this cooperation and support. On behalf of the Government of Ghana and my Ministry, I wish to express my gratitude for your continued support to the promotion of teaching and learning of French in our educational institutions. These teaching and learning ICT equipment and French manuals will go a long way to equip the language laboratories and classrooms of the six Colleges of Education and the 45 Bilingual Schools nationwide respectively.”
‘I hope and pray that the next Solidarity Funds for Innovative Project will put more premium on the human resource development through the creation of Regional Centres for the Teaching of French in the newly created regions, and I look forward to this.
May our two countries continue to build on the successes of the past as we seek to deepen our friendship, and may Ghana’s quest to improve herself as a learning nation include the teaching and learning of French for the benefit of our people.”
By Melvin Tarlue