NGOS against government's language policy

Tamale, Jan. 28, GNA - The Northern Network for Education Development (NNED), a civil society initiative of Northern Ghana, has appealed to the government to rescind its decision to make English language the only medium of instruction at the basic school level.

The NNED comprises NGOs, private individuals and institutions, the Regional Houses of Chiefs and Regional Directorates of the Ghana Education Service of the three Northern Regions.

In a statement to the government issued in Tamale on Wednesday and copied to the press, the NNED expressed concern about the lack of seriousness a language policy has had on the country since independence and the negative impact it had had on the country's educational system. The statement signed by Hajia Adisa Munkaila, Chairperson of the Executive Committee of NNED noted that the issue of language policy was not whether or not children should learn English as the official language of communication in Ghana but it was about getting a credible medium of instruction in schools, particularly at the lower primary. The statement noted that with English language as the only medium of instruction, Ghana would never achieve the objective of education for all because majority of children would be denied their rights and access to education.

The NNED mentioned that about 50 per cent of children in the three Northern Regions have no access to English and any form of education and wanted to know how such children could be educated in that situation. The statement said: "For children in the cities and urban centres who are brought up by parents speaking English to them, there might not be any problem despite the sadness it evokes seeing Ghanaians not able to read and write their own language".

The NNED drew the attention of the government to the fact that the use of only mother tongue as medium of instruction had been tested and proven to be the most effective way of learning, including a second language such as English.

It cited the School for Life (SFL) and ActionAid Ghana, both NGOS and members of NNED, which as their complementary and alternative education programmes, have adopted mother tongue as the sole medium of instruction in their literacy classes while the graduates they produce compete effectively with others and are among the best at the higher levels of education.

The statement called on the government to act as a matter of urgency, to fulfil its commitment as contained in the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) by learning from these practices and adopting such methodologies in formal education delivery process.

It urged the government to initiate public debate and discussion on a need for a credible local language policy in the country, adding that the government should consult the SFL and ActionAid Ghana to replicate their approach in rural schools in Northern Ghana to provide education for out of school children in the rural communities.

The government, the statement said, should provide resources to the Bureau of Ghana Languages, the Department of Ghanaian Languages of the University College of Education, Winneba to implement a local language policy and to strengthen their capacities to produce adequate local language books and train more local language teachers.

The statement tasked the Ministry of Education to develop and implement an efficient teacher recruitment strategy and make efforts to bridge the educational gap between the three Northern Regions and the rest of the country.