Why Parliament does not need First Aid in English

After a session of the Privileges Committee of Parliament Thursday, in which reggae musician and radio presenter, Blakk Rasta, capriciously backtracked on fiery and definitive comments he had made to the effect that 80 per cent of Parliamentarians smoke marijuana, some Ghanaians took to Facebook to condemn what they said was the poor spoken English of some MPs.

“One thing was clear from Parliament today – spoken English is a problem for some members. I heard constructions such as ‘a lot of my colleagues doesn’t even smoke cigarette’; ‘Did you attributed?’; ‘did you also spoke?’ I mean how? And no one should tell me that English is not our language. Heck! Stop it!,” Francis Kennedy Ocloo remarked on Facebook.

His comments were echoed by Selorm Brantie, who said: “And they will say ‘English is not our language and no one can be perfect in it’ as a cover up. Just look at the kind of English our Parliamentarians speak! We are not saying become a Brit, but at least give us some good tenses! I think English 101 is needed in the Parliament house and fassssst!”

Francis Doku said: “I cannot correct my six-year-old son on his tenses and also correct members of parliament on their tenses.”

Some Ghanaians have subsequently called for MPs to be provided with the book First Aid in English.

Now, to state that MPs need English lessons is to suggest that there is a relationship between spoken English and work performance. Such a statement presupposes that good spoken English in Parliament will help fast track Ghana’s development. It presupposes that parliamentarians who speak good English are more intelligent and qualified than their counterparts who do not. It also presumes that people who cannot speak English (mostly people without formal education) should not be in Parliament.

Spoken English, whether good or bad, has no impact whatsoever on the work that Parliament does. It’s a good thing to have command over the English language as an MP, but I don’t think it’s such an extraordinary feat.

English is just a language that some can speak and write better than others - Nothing more.

This brouhaha of over spoken English is a byproduct of the ludicrous perception in this country that one has to be able to speak good English before one can be deemed intelligent or academically sound.

I made the point in an article I wrote a year or so ago that having had the privilege to teach at a point in my life, I know firsthand that there are students who cannot speak and write good English, but are brilliant in Mathematics and the sciences.

Some are poor in English, but good in finance-rated subjects. Likewise, there are brilliant English students who are poor in Mathematics and other subjects that involve calculations.

It’s important to point out that we did not have equal opportunities in terms accessing education, especially at the basic level. While some people were privileged to attend good private basic schools in the cities, others were condemned to poor schools in deprived parts of the country, where even English teachers could not speak good English.

English is such that, if you don’t get the fundamentals - such as tenses and subject-verb agreement - right at the basic level, you may struggle to speak and write it well. That’s what is affecting many people today. The solid foundation they should have had in basic school is non-existent.

Some of our MPs fall within this category, but the good thing is that they managed to defy that setback to achieve success. They ought to be commended, and not disparaged.

Although some people don’t want to hear it, English is not our language, so people who cannot speak it well should not be ridiculed. It’s a foreign language that has been imposed on us. It’s a legacy of colonialism. We should not be speaking it in the first place.

The fact that people are worried about poor spoken English, but are not perturbed by the inability of many Ghanaians to speak and write their own local languages, points to a regressive mind-set.

Some of the best brains in the country today cannot speak good English.

These are people who are building cars, light planes; people in business, construction, real estate, health (herbal medicine) etc. There are electricians and mechanics at Suame Magazine who are far more skillful than people with engineering degrees from top universities in the country.

Some of them are contributing more to the development of the country than people who can speak impeccable English. The fact that you cannot speak English doesn't mean you can't contribute to the development of your country. It doesn't mean you cannot be in Parliament.

As such, a market woman at Makola, who contributes huge sums in taxes to the economy, but cannot speak English, should be able to contest and win a seat in Parliament. How will she communicate? She will of course speak Dagbani, Ga, Twi, Ewe or any other local language that she understands.

It’s also important that Ghanaian universities relax their criterion for admitting medical students.

Currently, they require students to have aggregate 7 in three core subjects and three electives. It means students have to get ‘A’ in 5 subjects and ‘B2’ in one before they can be admitted.

This requirement is unprogressive because it disqualifies students who are brilliant in the sciences but poor in English. Thus, if a student gets ‘A’ in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Integrated Science, and, say, C6 in English, it doesn’t make sense to bar him or her from medical or engineering school because he didn’t achieve the aggregate score.

Even if that student fails English, he should still be admitted because English language has got nothing to do with medicine, engineering or computer science? What has English got to do with coding, for instance? Doctors speak local languages in hospitals most of the time because those are the languages most people understand.

As a country, it’s time to reexamine the role of English in our development.