Ghana adopts French as its second official language

This follows a revelation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

The minister who confirmed the news said that the country’s education sector will be reformed to inculcate the learning of French.

This will be done through the promotion of the learning of French in basic schools and across all other levels.

The minister made the revelation at the opening session of the 2019 La Francophonie week held in Accra.

The countries that share boundaries with Ghana are all Francophone countries, however, Ghanaians usually find it difficult speaking the language.

In 2018, Ghana signed the Linguistic Pact with La Francophonie for improved technical support and capacity building for the teaching and learning of French.

Although the minister lamented on the limited learning and teaching materials, as well as the inadequate number of French teachers in the country, she believes that the partnership with La Francophonie will give an extensive teaching and learning of the French language and this will inure to the benefit of Ghana as it shares border with the three Francophone countries.

She said, “Making French a second language in Ghana would go a long way to improve regional integration, especially with the country having French-speaking neighbours.”

The French language has stood the test of time. It recently has been named as one of the most popular languages spoken by most Africans and even globally. It is believed to be spoken by 120 million people in Africa.

Ghana has therefore seen the need to learn the language and hence made it the country’s second language.

The move is seen to be an avenue to create jobs for citizens.