Mr Emmanuel Ohene Opare Snr, the Board Chairman, Golden Sunbeam International School, has urged Ghanaians to acquire bilingual skills to give them a competitive edge in the world of work.

Mr Opare Snr said this was critical because employers prefer employees who are fluent in more than one language.

He made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency as part of the School's plan to introduce bilingual education to meet the needs of job market.

With the introduction of bilingual education, students would be provided with solid academic foundations both in French and English from nursery to Senior High School level and encourage them to fulfil their potential through a multicultural environment.

The programme was to prepare and empower the students to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.

He said the school’s aim was to prepare students for a global, diverse and complex world, to be competitive and work across the world.

“We believe in discipline, effort and willingness to overcome, in order to achieve any goal. We encourage a taste for achievement and encourage excellence in all areas of human development”, he added.

He said it is essential to study French in Ghana because Ghana has French-speaking neighbours and is also a member of bodies like the Economic Community of West African States where French is one of the languages for communication.

He explained that bilingual education enables students to have access to a greater source of information, be more effective communicators and collaborators and have a broader global perspective.
He claimed that Studies have proven that being bilingual improves the executive function of the brain. That is the part of the “brain used for planning, solving problems and performing various mentally demanding tasks”.