DEPUTY MINISTER COMMENDS CATHOLIC GROUP (PAGE 43, JULY 21, 2010)

Deputy Minister commends Catholic group)

Story: Nana Konadu Agyeman, Koforidua
THE Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Baba Jamal, has commended the Community of the Holy Family of Devine Mercy, a Catholic group at Koforidua, for promoting the teaching and learning of French among basic schools in the region.
He said such commitment was gradually helping to reverse the low interest of students and pupils in the study of French, which he described as a language that “today has a global appeal to many people.”
“Since we are surrounded by Francophone countries, there is the need to learn French to help in our political, social and economic interactions with our neighbours,” Mr Jamal stated.
Speaking at the 2010 Devine Mercy French award for some selected basic schools in the Eastern Region, Mr Jamal said “language is a basic tool for development and it is a means by which both students, intellectuals and business-minded people can gain access to vast and varied supply of knowledge and experiences that are in the hands of our Francophone neighbours.”
This year’s competition, the third in a series, was organised for 120 pupils and students from selected basic schools at Koforidua, Tafo, Suhum, Somanya and Akosombo.
For the primary category, pupils from the Wesley International School, Koforidua obtained 93.2 per cent to place first, followed by pupils of the Carol Gray School, Somanya and the Solomon School, Koforidua, who had 83.5 and 82.5 per cent to take the second and third positions, respectively.
At the JHS level, the Star at Suhum School had 89 per cent to take the first position while the Akosombo International School and the Riis Presbyterian School at Koforidua had 86.3 and 86.1 per cent to take the second and third positions, respectively.
The competition was sponsored by the Mac Dic Royal Plaza Hotel, the Y & K Investment Limited and the Antarctic Limited, both at Koforidua.
Mr Jamal said since the country was surrounded by French-speaking neighbours, the need for learning and teaching French had become more indispensable.
He, therefore, advocated the need for the learning of French to be made a compulsory subject from the basic to the tertiary level of education in the country.
    According to him, if the inclusion of French was made a compulsory subject and a requirement into tertiary institutions such as the university, students would be motivated to study the language to improve themselves.
 “We can only hope to make Ghana the gateway to West Africa if we can encourage our people to see the need to study French in this era of global village which required our people be armed with the language that will enable them to cross boundaries and still find their way in any French-speaking country”, Mr Jamal stated.
   He, therefore, expressed the hope that the Ghana Education Service would give serious consideration to the call for French to be included in the curricula of educational institutions from the basic to the tertiary levels.
   Mr Jamal urged the Community of the Holy Family of Devine Mercy to collaborate with the French Embassy in the country to enable them to get more schools from all the 21 municipalities and districts in the region to also benefit from the French competition, stressing “if we engage the youth in this productive venture, it will help them to acquire knowledge and also reduce their involvement in social vices”.