French teacher mobility initiative takes off
The Ministry of Education has stepped up the teaching of French in the country with the launch of the French Teacher Mobility (FTM) Programme to facilitate the training of more teachers of French.
Under the initiative, 21 teachers of French picked from across the world have been deployed to institutions that are teaching French to support in the training of their Ghanaian counterparts.
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The teachers of French would be in the country for two years and are expected to train about 4,000 teachers.
The teachers, 10 women and 11 men are from Andorra, Burundi, Cameroun, the Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Moldova, Rwanda, Serbia, Chad and Togo.
Implementation
The initiative, which is being implemented in collaboration with the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), is made up of 88 states and governments.
The FTM was established by the OIL to meet the needs of member countries wishing to commit to a national plan for the quality teaching of French.
The OIF is investing half a million euros to ensure the success of the FTM programme in Ghana.
The inclusion of Ghana in the FTM programme followed a request by President Nana Akufo-Addo to the Secretary-General of the OIF, Mrs Louise Mushikiwabo, to strengthen the teaching of French.
Launch
Launching the programme in Accra last Tuesday, the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Adutwum, said the strategic location of Ghana made it crucial to take the teaching and learning of the French language serious.
According to him, it made good business sense, security and entrepreneurial sense to study French as a foreign language since it would go a long way to help foster trade relations, as well as other socio-economic activities to enhance the development of the country.
The education minister stated that everything possible would be done to make the teaching and learning of the French language easier to the people so it would be very easy for Ghanaians to communicate efficiently in French if they travelled to any French-speaking country in the sub-region and the rest of the world.
Dr Adutwum called for more of such support to help boost the teaching and learning of French in the country since it would help the country in diverse ways.
“Ghana is currently hosting the African Continental Free Trades Area (AfCFTA) centre and as such cannot downplay the importance of the French language if we want to benefit from the operations of other countries,” he said.
The French Ambassador to Ghana,Mrs Anne Sophie Avé, lauded the government for the effort being made to ensure that the teaching and learning of French in the country was promoted.
She also commended the minister of education for working to create the needed environment for the teaching and learning of French in schools.
She was very upbeat that every effort would be made to help boost the teaching, speaking and writing of French in the country so that many Ghanaians would be able to benefit from doing business with their Francophone counterparts in the sub-region and beyond.
Mrs Avé urged the volunteers to ensure that they did everything possible within their might to ensure that many Ghanaians get the opportunity to study and speak the French language in the country and beyond.
OIF
The Head of the delegation of the OIF, Madam Rennie Yotova, noted that the local authorities would have to gradually take ownership of the project and set up a permanent national system for teaching French that will enable the country to train its teachers and teach French independently.