Re: Let’s not introduce new foreign language!

My attention has been drawn to some information online that the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, wants to introduce another foreign language into our Senior High Schools (SHS). 

My immediate reaction was, nooo!

In Ghana, we have so many local languages, still not fully realised among many Ghanaians.

So why are our educational heads thinking of introducing another foreign language?!

What foreign language again do we need, with the English and French already being taught in Ghanaian schools?

Have we not become foreigners enough in our own country?

If local languages are widely spoken across the length and breadth of the country, would we not do away with all the negative perceptions we have of other ethnic groups?

Elsewhere, education is framed to make citizens confront and/or solve their own challenges, but not in Africa.

I object to another foreign language for children to learn in school, apart from English and French already being learnt.

Please, minister, I plead, save us from this.

What we need to do is to teach our children what will make them good citizens in Ghana, with a deeper sense of nationalism inculcated in them; and not another foreign language.

Foreigners will not come and build Ghana for us, no matter how well we speak their language.

There are too many inter-ethnic conflicts in our country, minister. Rather, we ought to make compulsory learning for all those in the south of the country, one or two northern languages and vice versa.

If the intention is to introduce Arabic, I suggest we offer that in our Islamic schools, whilst we allow Christian schools to introduce Hebrew, Greek and maybe Latin for fairness.

Remember, whoever wishes Ghana well should always think of fairness in our multi-religio-ethno-socio-political context, instead of pursuing any parochial interests that only end up serving the aspirations of some minority groups.

Rev. Dr D. O. Bediako-Akoto,
Lapaz, Accra.