French Resource Centre launched

Accra, Oct. 26, GNA - FrancoZone, a resource centre to provide up-to-date documentation for teachers and learners of French, was on Thursday launched in Accra.

The Centre located at Accra High School is designed to provide French teachers with the facility to inform themselves about the latest techniques concerning French with adequate documentation, giving them access to database containing a wide selection of ready-to-use teaching materials.

It is also aimed at becoming a place of excellence for distance learning as well as the Ghanaian gateway of the RECFLEA, a new network linking centres where French as a foreign language is taught in the West Africa Sub-Region.

The French Ambassador in Ghana, Mr Pierre Jacquemot said the Centre was dedicated to all those who shared a common interest in French and wished to be better acquainted with francophone literature.

He said French teachers would soon be able to share not only teaching material but also experiences and views on professional practices with their colleagues in the Sub-Region and beyond. Mr Stephen Balado Manu, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, expressed gratitude to the French and Ghanaian Governments for their initiative and said the notion that French was a difficult subject should be discarded.

He said Ghana was surrounded by Francophone countries but unfortunately Ghanaians found it difficult to communicate in French unlike their French counterparts who could at least do so in 'broken' English.

The FrancoZone Centre is the upgrade of the Greater Accra CREF, a French acronym Regional Centres for the Teaching of French. The CREF network that had one National Coordination Office and 10 regional resource centres for teaching and learning of French Language was incorporated into Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) in 1990.

It is sponsored by the governments of Ghana and France.