Marginalizing the Mother Tongue in Ghana is Destroying Education

 

Increasingly, the Ghanaian tertiary classroom is receiving learners who cannot effectively handle the English Language. Reading is a chore for such learners, apparently, due to the poor comprehension skills. Reading is no fun when a reader has challenges understanding text. The students in question cannot produce coherent text, so they plagiarize. Asking such students to apply concepts learnt in class is a thorny experience, due to poor comprehension. It is indeed baffling that learners could have studied English for about fourteen years yet communicate so poorly in the Language.

Ironically, learners are losing grasp of English at a time when many Ghanaian parents tend to speak English with their children at home, right from infancy. The former erroneously believe that just by using English, their children would acquire proficiency in the major language. Such parents could be literate or semi-literate, they struggle to speak English with their children. Ghana’s high illiteracy rate, coupled with porous handling of language policies across levels of education, culminate in many residents leaving school with abysmal English skills. Therefore, the English spoken at home tends to be below standard.

Worst of all, many private schools neither teach Ghanaian languages nor allow learners to use them in school. Some would even instruct learners not to speak the mother tongue at home. Therefore, when parents attempt to communicate in the first tongue, their children would not be engaged. The situation effectively creates linguistic interlopers who, unwittingly, squander the mother tongue and flip flop in the second language. Poor language skills effectively hamper learning, especially, at the formative level, rendering socio-cultural, intellectual development processes shallow as learners progress. Instead of producing knowledgeable and skilled professionals, we are, currently, mostly creating charlatans.

The situation has persisted for a considerable time, so questionable knowledge and skills have permeated the sectors, from health through service, legal, energy, transport housing, to mention six. When major stakeholders possess porous knowledge and skills, they fail to appreciate service and value. Consequently, there is hardly service delivery in Ghana now, but shoddiness and exploitation.

Evidently, slighting the mother tongue is yielding poor dividends in the Ghanaian society. Growing generation are rapidly losing the linguistic values and legitimate world view inherent in the mother language. Sacrificing the language also implies squandering vast opportunities for job creation – translation, writing, publishing – in a country saddled with a high unemployment rate. When indigenous people elsewhere are fighting vehemently to save their languages, many indigenous Ghanaians trample upon indigenous languages. Instead of embracing multilingualism, many Ghanaians advocate dominant language supremacy.

Of the estimated 6,000 languages of the world, 43 % is endangered; UNESCO reports that a language is lost every fortnight. Ghanaian languages might be in that category, considering the growing trend of poor usage among indigenes. As the world marks International Mother Tongue Day on February 21^st, well-meaning Ghanaians ought to reflect on the grave implications of marginalizing indigenous languages. Improvement can come through concerted efforts only.

The Education Ministry ought to revisit the language policy and strategize strict implementation. Private schools in the country must be obliged to offer Ghanaian languages. Teacher certification at the basic and secondary levels should be conditional upon a teacher’s proficiency in, at least, one Ghanaian language. Both at home and school, children should be encouraged to use their mother tongue. Such bold steps would, gradually, ensure a balance in the use of mother tongue and English.

Families ought to know that marginalizing the mother tongue is a delinquent stance, because it compromises a child’s learning experience. Conversely, when a child receives the mother tongue through childcare and formative learning years, her/his learning experience is smoothened. There are diverse, valid and human reasons for speaking and valuing Ghanaian indigenous languages. On Sunday, February 21^st, every Ghanaian ought to promise the self to learn to be an effective user of the mother tongue and show appreciation for its socio-cultural, intellectual and linguistic endowments. May the International Mother Language Day motivate all to contemplate the question: Do I desire to know the values inherent in my mother tongue?