A Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast’s Department of Basic Education, Dr. Joyce Tawiah-Mensah, has urged the government to demonstrate strong political commitment to ensure the effective implementation of mother tongue instruction in Ghanaian schools.
Her call comes in response to a recent directive by the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, instructing the Ghana Education Service (GES) to strictly enforce the use of local languages as the medium of instruction at all levels of basic education.
The directive forms part of the government’s education reform agenda aimed at enhancing comprehension and learning outcomes among pupils by promoting the use of Ghanaian languages in classrooms.
Speaking at the launch of the Free Tertiary Education Programme for Persons Living with Disabilities, Mr. Iddrisu said the adoption of local languages would help bridge the comprehension gap, especially in the early years of schooling.
Reacting to the directive on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, October 27, Dr. Tawiah-Mensah commended the initiative but stressed that its success would depend on the government’s readiness to provide the necessary resources and teacher capacity.
“It’s something that we can do, but we need political commitment in terms of teacher training, materials and others,” she suggested.
She pointed out that not all teachers are fluent in local languages, which could make the policy difficult to implement effectively across all schools.
Dr. Tawiah-Mensah further observed that even children in urban centres such as Accra can easily learn local languages if they are regularly exposed to them.
“With the mother tongue base, at least, have the children learn one language of their country or locality and give them the international language as well. Because one thing that we sometimes don’t pay attention to is that these Accra children you think cannot speak any of the local languages, leave them to play with their friends while you are not around, and see if they don’t speak the local language,” she explained.
She added, “Though they speak only English in residential areas, because they hear the language around, they’ve picked up one or two things. They will get it fast when the schools enforce it. Accra can use it, provided we train teachers how to use it very well in the classrooms.”
The Education Ministry is expected to collaborate with the GES and other stakeholders to ensure the smooth rollout of the policy in the coming academic term.
