Government's compulsory French tuition: Over 13,000 teachers needed

Over thirteen thousand French teachers will be required within five years to support the policy of making French a compulsory subject in basic schools.

A report from the University of Education, Winneba, shows that only 10 percent out of the fourteen thousand basic schools in the country teach French.

Ghana is a multilingual country where English has been made the official language among the over twenty languages spoken.

Due to this, English has been made the language of instruction even at the Kindergarten through all levels of education.

Perhaps the reason for which majority of the country’s 46 colleges of education does not place much premium on training of French teachers.

Even with this background, a publication on Tuesday September 2, 2014 indicated that 98% of primary two pupils can neither read nor understand English or any Ghanaian language properly.

However, President Akufo Addo in an address in neigbouring Togo as part of his three country tour gave strong indications that French would be made compulsory from the next academic year.

In 2013, the Colleges of Education produced 124 French teachers, 125 in 2014, 118 in 2015 and 144 are expected to graduate this year.

Historically, Mount Mary was the first College Of Education that started training French teachers in Ghana.

The school currently lacks several basic amenities making the training and teaching of French difficult.

The Executive Secretary of the National Council For Tertiary Education, Professor Mohammed Salifu says a financial provision will be made to give the school and other Colleges of Education a facelift.

Two months to the beginning of the next academic year, and it appears not much has been done for the implementation of this policy. Critics are questioning whether or not government’s policy can start this year as intended.