The Minister for Education and MP for Manhyia South, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has underscored Ghana’s commitment to promoting the teaching and learning of French as a second official language in the country.

The Minister was speaking at a ceremony in Paris, France, where a linguistic pact was signed between Ghana and the International Organisation of the Francophone for improved technical support and capacity building for the teaching and learning of French in Ghana.

In attendance was Ghana’s Ambassador to France, H.E. Anna Bossman, other members of the Diplomatic Corps, and the leadership of the organization. The Ghanaian delegation also included officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Francophone is a gathering of French-speaking countries around the world, whose objectives are to promote peace and good governance, to support education, training and research, and to promote the French language and cultural diversity.

Dr. Prempeh noted in his remarks that in September 2006 in Bucharest, Romania, Ghana acceded to the Francophone as an associate member to contribute to the attainment of the noble goals the organization set for itself. Our accession was steered by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was then Ghana’s Foreign Minister.

Explaining that Ghana was surrounded by French-speaking countries and that most ECOWAS countries had French as their official language, he stressed that strategically, it was in Ghana’s interests to pursue the teaching-learning of French to enable the country benefit more from the West African sub-region.

He outlined some of the government’s policies in promoting French, which include introduction of French in a number of professional and technical-oriented universities, provision of resources in public libraries to enable learning of French with a degree of autonomy, celebration by the University of Ghana of Francophone Day with seminars and conferences to create awareness of the language, and initial talks with French TV stations to extend their broadcasting services to Ghana.

Dr. Prempeh further pointed to an insufficient number of French teachers and a limited number of learning and teaching materials as the main challenges facing the government in pursuit of its policy on the French language.

“Ghana deeply appreciates the sterling work being done by this organization in its goals…We share these aims and values and look forward to playing an important role in their realization. It is my conviction that the signing of this pact will pose a significant landmark in our effort to build bridges between the people of Ghana and the people of the larger community of Francophone” the minister said.