Navrongo, Jan. 17, GNA - The University of Development Studies (UDS) plans to extend its Bilingual Programme and make it a major part of its curriculum.

The programme, which covers both English and French languages and is integrated into the faculty's normal training programme, was started three years ago and students undertaking the course also study other subjects like mathematics, chemistry and environmental studies in the two languages.

Professor Kaku Nokoe, the Pro Vice Chancellor and Co-coordinator of the French Programme, said this during the commissioning of a French language center at the Navrongo campus on Wednesday. The government built it at a cost of 80 million cedis.

He said the school had planned to extend the course to the Wa and Nyankpala campuses of the university so as to take on foreign students who wished to study both languages.

Professor John B.K. Kaburise, Vice Chancellor of the university, said the programme would serve as a unifying factor for Africa and would enhance regional integration and entice Francophone investors to Ghana. "One critical factor that will facilitate the integration of Africa into the global world is language. The teaching of French is very commendable because it is one of the catalysts to the development of the continent", he said.

The Vice Chancellor said the university was producing graduates equipped with the needed knowledge, skills and competencies to compete favorably on the job market.

He said the French language center had problems of inadequate staffing, lack of audio laboratory, inadequate finance for the industrial attachment programme as well as insufficient literature for the programme and other science subjects.

Professor Kaburise thanked the government for supporting the programme and for building the French Study Center.

He appealed to the French Ambassador in Ghana, Mr. Pierre Jacquemot who commissioned the building, to continue to support the center with finance for staff development and the faculty's industrial attachment training programme.

Mr. Jacquemot said learning French would among other things promote cultural diversity and improve relations between Ghana and its French-speaking neighbours.

The students demonstrated their knowledge of the French language in a drama and in solving mathematics problems in French.