Ghana is currently not fully ready to make Arabic an examinable subject in schools in the country.
This according to President of policy think tank IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe is because the country lacks the infrastructure to implement the idea in the short and medium term.
“We cannot begin to make it look like obviously a wholesale thing. Why not probably Hausa and even if I suggest Hausa it’s to suggest again that there is even space for it to be taught across board. I think the infrastructure we have now cannot support this in the short to medium term. I don’t think we are ready, we are dealing with too many rudimentary things, and chief of staff is my good friend and I’ll probably be telling him this in his face,” he said on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday.
[contextly_sidebar id=”uhdZstktgNDQnKVLV5TgZprwk2KE5LJX”]The Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah that announced that government intends to make Arabic an examinable subject at the Senior High School level in 2017 and the basic level in 2018.
The IMANI boss on The Big Issue urged government not to rush in implementing the idea.
“The whole idea that there may be career paths for technical jobs in the Arab world or career diplomats may be aspirational but really we conducted the JSS here in this country, the JSS are supposed to have workshops, they never did. That is where the wretched of the poor from our educational leader actually end up. So we are not even treating technical education that well. Do we really want to pile up? This is non-quantifiable,” he added.
Arabic already an examinable SHS subject
Meanwhile, a former Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Michael Kenneth Nsowah has said the subject is already examinable.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Friday [November 11], Mr Nsowah said, “already included in the SHS curriculum is Arabic and in actual fact students for this year wrote Arabic on the 29th of March… it is already there so the issue that they are going to be introduced to the curriculum; it is already there.”
–
By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin