An Educationist, Anis Haffar, has said the Education Ministry’s directive, asking teachers of basic schools to use local language to teach students in basic schools, can only be feasible if the teachers trained to effectively communicate in local languages.
The Education Minister, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman, asked heads and teachers of basic schools to desist from the using of the English language as the sole medium of instruction at the basic level.
Annis Hafer told Citi News that although he agrees that the use of the local languages in teaching is extremely important in the cognitive development of young people, however, several factors need to be considered before it can be productive.
“There is a lot of value in the [directive], but we have to begin looking at the practicalities of it,” he said.
Mr. Haffer believes that a lot of effort should go into training teachers to use the local dialects effectively in basic schools.
According to him, the teachers supposed to teach students in these languages need to be “very versatile” in them, in order to “to be able to speak it as well as understand it deep enough to begin to write and read it.”
He also argued that schools should employ the language that the students are comfortable with “as the medium of instruction right from the beginning.”
According to him, “confidence is built in the students when a mode of expression that comes easiest to them” is employed.
The Minister, when she gave the directive said that studies had shown students performed better when taught in the local language, and appealed to the teachers to endeavour to use the local language as a medium of instruction at the basic level.
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana