Dr. Nicoleau (middle) with Dr. Opoku-Mensah (left) and Mr. Tsegah (right)
A national dialogue has been held in Accra to find solutions to the critical challenges hindering the effective implementation of Ghana’s Language Policy in Education.
The National Language Policy when effectively implemented would ensure that children in basic schools are taught with more than one Ghanaian language.
The school children would be able to also speak more than one local language in basic schools when the policy is implemented.
Dr. Guitele Nicoleau, Chief of Party, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ghana Partnership for Education, who spoke at the forum touched on some of the challenges faced in the implementation process.
She said multiple language background of some children, especially, those in urban areas such as Accra pose a challenge.
She indicated that negative attitudes about the use of Ghanaian language in education, coupled with the fact that teachers deployed to certain areas could not speak the local language of the community.
“This puts the teacher at a disadvantage because the teacher cannot use the language to teach the children,” Dr. Nicoleau said.
According to her these critical factors of language mismatch needed to be addressed in order for the policy to be fully implemented.
Dr. Nicoleau specified that learning materials in the local languages such as books should be made available to help the children practise reading in their local languages.
This, she said, will ensure an effective implementation of the policy, urging the community to buy into the notion of the importance of the local language to build the children’s confidence.
Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah of the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) and the convener of the event, said one of the methods to tackle the challenges is the use of language mapping exercise which would help stakeholders to understand the nature of the language in different areas of the country.
The exercise, he said, would also help to determine the type of language to be used in a particular locality, and understand the language situation in the various parts of the country, especially in the urban areas.
The chairman of Language Policy Work Organization, Charles Aheto Tsegah, explained that the dialogue was to brainstorm and find ways in which local languages could be used as a driver to enhance effective learning among children.
By Cephas Larbi
cephrok@yahoo.com