As part of efforts to promote and encourage people from the lower grades to use their mother language at an early stage, World Vision Ghana has organized a debate competition for students of the Begoro Presbyterian Senior High School in the Fanteakwa North District of the Eastern Region.
The competition which is part of a series of programmes and activities from World Vision to mark this year’s International Mother Language Day is also to help promote and preserve our heritage as a country as well.
This year’s celebration which is under the theme, “Multilingual Education – A pillar of learning and intergenerational learning”, saw three debaters each representing the Awuah Kotoko House who went for the Motion and Nana Okyere Yobo House argued against the Motion which was “Should local languages be promoted in schools in Ghana?”.
All debaters were given ample time by panel judges to state their cases, and challenge statements through rebuttals. Debaters from Nana Awuah Kotoko House emerged as winners of the debate competition.
According to the judges, their ability to quote and reference some philosophers, mixing drama with culture through good submissions in the mother language by the principal speakers was admirable.
The Chairman for the occasion Nana Adu Tieku Dwantoahene of Begoro in his closing remarks expressed gratitude to the management of World Vision for their tremendous support to the Fanteakwa district especially in the area of education and health.
“World Vision has been here for more than 18 good years, and their contributions in the area of health and education are second to none. I want you guys to add more to the education budget, and advise teachers to stamp their authority to ensure discipline and respect in schools.
“Because it has come to our attention that illicit drug usage is gaining ground in our senior high schools, so we plead with you to come out with initiatives that will help teachers to stop this”.
On her part Madam Vanessa Boateng-Okrah – the Reading Improvement and Skills Enhancement (RISE) Project Officer for World Vision Ghana in Fanteakwa, explaining the rationale behind the quiz competition expressed satisfaction about the impact.
“International Mother Language Day is purposely to create awareness and to sensitize the public and students in schools about our mother tongue and promote our mother tongue in our schools. We realize that most of our local languages are fading in schools, and we don’t even use this as a method of instruction when teaching”.
“So, we want to revive that in schools, especially in the foundational level, like from KG1 to basic 3, that’s why we are here. Just to create more awareness and to celebrate this important day what we have identified is that we don’t use the mother tongue anymore and even in schools.
“When children speak their local language, some of them are reprimanded for speaking it and we feel like it’s not ideal. We should promote our local languages and we realize that some local languages are even going extinct. So, we want to keep them in the system, revive them, even to promote our cultural heritage and not let our cultural heritage fade away, just like that.”
Ampadu Phillip Agyei the lead debater speaking to the media emphasized on the need to use local languages in schools to help easy understanding.
“We are losing some of our culture, yes, almost all, as I indicated during the debate. Some games, food and a whole lot of things concerning our native language is being lost to western culture. At least, I am adapting someone’s language, like English language and French and some people especially children and youth are losing their language.
“I think maybe someone should take all the points we shared seriously that using local languages in schools will help preserve our culture.”
He added, “I think when using the native language, it helps you to express your views well and to that extent, we have to start from our basic level, so we also support the call for Parliament to adopt the use of local languages in the house. We will use this opportunity to also urge the Ghana Education Service to help implement it in our schools.”
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