By Cecil MENSAH
The French Embassy in Ghana has called for the learning of the French language through the use of modern technology to boost regional integration in the West African sub-region.
The French Ambassador to Ghana, Francois Pujolas, made this call at the launch of the ‘Hackathon”, a competition to motivate Information Technology experts as well as students to use the French language to develop mobile applications for the learning of French in the Ghana.
He said the decision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to encourage more Ghanaians to learn French is a perfect one, because Ghana has finally come to the realization that the study of French is important for the development of bilingualism in the country.
He explained that citizens of the neighbouring countries like Togo and Ivory Coast take the study of the English language serious to compete with the English speaking countries in the West African Region.
‘’Ghanaians learning to speak and write French is paramount because it is surrounded by French speaking countries and good for achieving the regional integration agenda in the West African sub-region’’.
He said the French government through the embassy has committed GHC4 million to the Ministry of Education for the development of modules for the learning of French at the basic and secondary levels of education in the country.
He says the support to the Ministry of Education is to develop a trainer’s programme for the training of more tutors for the learning of the language.
Because of the programme, the embassy has put up ten French learning centres across the regions of the country to assist in that direction.
He maintained that this will motivate the young Ghanaian to use technology to learn French to boost the regional integration agenda of the Economic Communities of West African States (ECOWAS).
The Head of the Lucas College, one of the centres for the training of trainers’ as part of the programme; Toufic Tasso, said his college was delighted to host the first edition of the ‘Hackathon’ competition in the country.
According to him, the competition will change the way French is learned in the country and draw more young people to join the programme to study the language.
Writer’s Email: cecilm@businessdayghana.com
