This term paper gives a concise understanding of language policy in Ghana. The West African region has recently suffered from a number of serious problems. The horrendous outbreak of the Ebola virus has affected countries like Mali, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to the WHO, the official death toll in the region has already exceeded an alarming 5,160 people out of more than 14,000 Ebola cases by mid-November 2014. Although Nigeria's recent declaration of being Ebola free has given some hope, the upcoming elections are overshadowed by terrorist attacks of the Boko Haram group. Burkina Faso's military coup beginning of November led to an interim government; uncertainties still remain whether the county will find its way back to civilian rule.
Against the above-mentioned issues of health and political instability, language and education may indeed seem fairly irrelevant. Still, if we consider the more general socio-cultural dimension of a positive transformation of the African region, language is an important factor in the process. Accordingly, Bernard Spolsky emphasizes the importance of language policy as one of the new major topics in dealing with a society's situation.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 A Theoretical Background: Defining Language Policy
3 The Case of Ghana
3.1 The Language Situation in Ghana
3.2 A Brief History of Education in Ghana: From Non-formal Education to Language Policy
3.3 The Education System of Ghana and the 2002 Language Policy
3.4 Challenging the Language Policy: A Theoretical Background on Bilingualism
3.5 Alternative Suggestion: Late Exit/Gradual Transition Model
4 Conclusion
5 Bibliography
1 Introduction
The West African region has recently suffered from a number of serious problems. The horrendous outbreak of the Ebola virus has affected countries like Mali, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to the WHO, the official death toll in the region has already exceeded an alarming 5,160 people out of more than 14,000 Ebola cases by mid November 20141. Although Nigeria's recent declaration of being Ebola free has given some hope2, the upcoming elections are overshadowed by terrorist attacks of the Boko Haram group3. Burkina Faso's military coup beginning of November lead to an interim government; uncertainties still remain whether the county will find its way back to civilian rule4.
While many countries in the region struggle, Ghana has long been serving as the role model for successful development after its independence from former British colonial rule, which is well documented by figures of GDP and GNP (cf. Fosu 2013). However, Adams B. Bodomo argues that [t]he consequences of this quantitative approach to development are that economic indicators are often erroneously equated with national development and societal wellbeing. In this narrow sense then the role of language in Africa's development may rather be seen as a bit too marginal to be taken seriously (Bodomo 1996: 31-2).
Against the above mentioned issues of health and political instability, language and education may indeed seem fairly irrelevant. Still, if we consider the more general sociocultural dimension of a positive transformation of the African region, language is an important factor in the process (cf. ibid.: 33). Accordingly, Bernard Spolsky emphasises the importance of language policy as one of the new major topics in dealing with a society's situation (cf. Spolsky 2012: ix).
This paper will critically investigate language policy in Ghana. It will first define different levels and the scope of language policy in more general terms before it looks at the Ghanaian case in specific. The history of education in Ghana will serve as a background for the current language policy. The reasons that are given to support the policy are stated; respective counterarguments and problems will then be addressed by looking at a theoretical background of bilingualism before alternative suggestions are considered. The conclusion will sum up the findings and spell out some remaining issues.
2 A Theoretical Background: Defining Language Policy
The first task will be to define the term “language policy”, its meaning and scope, and its various domains. Spolsky distinguishes three aspects to understand language policy: language practices, language beliefs, and language planning (cf. ibid 5-15), which will be briefly defined as follows:
Language practice regards the habitual, the conscious and less conscious use of speech. Different languages can be distinguished, categorized and labelled, such as e.g. English versus French. Language varieties may be recognized within an identified language, e.g. British versus American English. On an even finer level, the concept of language practice is applicable to parts of speech within a variety, i.e. formal versus informal register, appropriate versus inappropriate use.
Language practice is derived from and influenced by language beliefs: a community assigns values to aspects of language by consensus. Language beliefs are “what people think should be done. Language practices, on the other hand, are what people actually do” (ibid. 14). A certain language ideology may be more dominant while there could be as many beliefs as there are speech communities.
Language management seeks to confirm or modify language beliefs and practices. This can happen on various levels: language management ranges from decisions in a relatively private sphere, or the control by an authority, up to a government policy that produces official state documents. Respectively, the members of a family may decide on which language is spoken at home; the teacher in a classroom regulates the pupils' use of language with respect to “bad” versus appropriate speech; an official language policy may aim at influencing the use of one language or several specific languages on a national level.
Spolsky distinguishes various domains of language policy: Family, school, religion, the workplace, local government or the nation (cf. ibid 42-56). While the focus of this paper is primarily on the educational system in Ghana and the language policy on a national level, it will be shown how language attitude in the local sphere and the family are, nonetheless, factors that need to be taken into consideration.
3 The Case of Ghana
3.1 The Language Situation in Ghana
The language situation in Ghana, as in many African countries, is quite diverse. According to ethnologue.com, there are 70 indigenous languages that are spoken in Ghana alone. The Ghanaian government has officially recognized 11 state sponsored languages, which will be listed with the respective number of speakers in parenthesis: The Akan ethnic languages Akuapem Twi (555,000), Asante Twi (2,800,000) and Fante (1,900,000); the two Mole-Dagbani ethnic languages Dagaare (700,000) and Dagbani (800,000); Nzema (262,000), Ewe (2,250,000), Dangme (800,000), Ga (600,000), Gonja (230,000), and Kasem (130,000) (cf. ethnologue.com). These numbers are taken from 2003 to 2004, so they most probably differ up until now; also the figures that rely on a government census are generally debatable due to the procedure and the layout of questionnaires.
Apart from the indigenous languages, migration from neighbouring countries also influences the linguistic diversity of Ghana: Hausa and Mande are spoken in communities that are actually separate from the languages' original speaking areas of Northern Nigeria and Niger (cf. Bodomo 1996: 38-9).
A third category still distinct from the West African language families include English as the official lingua franca in Ghana, ranging from standard educated English to its widely used pidgin variety. English has developed to be the dominant language in education and the media. To give an introductory example for the situation in Ghana, “as much as 51% of the total amount of annual broadcasting hours is reserved for English alone, leaving the rest for all the many Ghanaian and African languages” (ibid 40). Other nonnative languages include French which is taught in school and spoken by an educated bilingual elite, and Arabic which is taught in Islamic schools and spoken in Lebanese communities in Ghana (cf. ibid. 39). Although these might be represented to a fairly insignificant degree, they still contribute not only to a language diversity but also to a discrepancy between the indigenous and the non-native languages with respect to value and attitude. These aspects are rooted in a long history of education, from missionaries and Castle Schools, the British colonial rule, and the changing language policy of the independent Republic of Ghana. The following section will briefly look at the history of education in Ghana (cf. Eyiah 2004).
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1 cf. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/12/ebola-death-toll-up-world-health-organisation
2 cf. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/nigeria-ebola-crackdown-example-to-world
3 cf. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/12/30-killed-twin-bombs-nigeria-jos-elections
4 cf.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/burkina-faso-appoints-army-colonel-isaac-zida- transitional-prime-minister