A RENOWNED educationist, Theodosia Wilhelmina Jackson, has observed with concern the speech, language and communication difficulties among school children and graduates in the country.
According to her, many school children lack basic language skills to be able to communicate effectively in the English Language – the nation’s official language – pointing out that there is circumstantial evidence suggesting that graduates and school children’s language and communication skills have declined.
The educationist, who is the Principal of the Jackson College of Education, believes students’ speaking skills have deteriorated in the past few years at all levels of education because of a fall in the teaching and learning of the English Language.
Lauding the declaration of government’s commitment to make learning and speaking of French Language at the basic level of education compulsory, Mrs Jackson described the intention as a good one that needs the support of all stakeholders.
Education Minister, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, lamented the low level of national literacy of the French Language at a recent meeting with a delegation from the French Embassy in Accra, during which he affirmed government’s vision to promote the learning and speaking of French.
This, the minister, disclosed, includes equipping French teacher trainees to be abreast with modern French Language modules as part of embracing a second foreign language to be studied in schools.
Later, Mrs Theodosia Wilhelmina Jackson told DAILY GUIDE in an interview that Ghanaians needed an average literacy in French to improve on commerce and relations with citizens of Ghana’s neighbouring countries for the nation’s betterment.
According to her, the absence of literacy in French had been a catastrophic setback for the nation in many spheres, and prayed for the Education Ministry to walk the talk.
For her, behaviours such as a mother reading to the child, playing rhyming games, and talking about letters and sounds to the child are important things to do at home to help improve on their (children’s) communication skills.