Mother tongue instruction, foundation of learning
I used to be a Mathematics teacher to Primary Three pupils in a private school at Akim-Oda in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
After teaching the lesson to the best of my ability during my first week, I wrote a few questions on the blackboard to assess the understanding of my learners.
To my dismay, only five out of the thirty pupils were able to answer the questions correctly.
A little frustrated, I asked my pupils whether they understood the concept I had just taught.
A male learner politely asked me to go over the lesson again, but this time in Twi, the local language of the community.
Twenty-five out of 30 pupils answered the questions correctly after I taught the concept in Twi.
On that day, I learnt that teaching - particularly at the early levels of education ‒ must be done in a language that the learner is completely comfortable with for meaningful learning to take place.
This memory from September 2017 came to visit once more when the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrissu, at an event on October 25, 2025, directed the Ghana Education Service (GES) to strictly enforce the use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in all Ghanaian schools.
After a public debate ensued, the Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Clement Apaak, clarified at another event two days later that the Minister's directive was to enforce the already-existing policy of using Ghanaian languages as a medium of instruction from Kindergarten through Primary Three.
My initial excitement upon hearing the Minister's directive began to wane.
Education
Since formal education was introduced in the castle schools in the then-Gold Coast, there have been different policies regarding the medium of instruction.
The current policy, which mandates that Ghanaian Languages be used as the medium of instruction, with a transition to English from Primary Four upwards, was adopted in 2012.
But it has encountered innumerable challenges in its implementation.
The first challenge I would like to speak of is the insistence of private school owners and administrators on the strict use of the English Language in their schools.
I was warned by the proprietor of the school in which I taught to never speak Twi in the presence of learners.
I am convinced that private school operators do this to please parents, who are of the erroneous impression that speaking English is more prestigious.
Teacher preparedness
Another hurdle that confronts the implementation of this policy is teacher-preparedness.
Are teacher-trainees in our various colleges of education and universities trained to use our languages to teach whenever necessary?
Are there adequate teaching and learning materials for the implementation of this policy?
And although public schools seem to do a better job at implementing this policy, what happens when a teacher is posted to a community whose native language s/he cannot speak?
Unfortunately, the Ghanaian learner pays a hefty price for the poor implementation of the medium of instruction policy.
We have a society in which a vast majority of people cannot think critically and have challenges with basic numeracy and literacy due to the weak foundation they received from our schools.
Students are taught in a language most struggle to understand, making teachers focus on rote memorisation, also known as "chew, pour, pass and forget", instead of comprehension.
And how can people who cannot reason for themselves contribute effectively to nation-building?
Many of my friends who have studied in other parts of the world have confessed to me how they had difficulty adjusting initially because of how the education system in those countries focuses on comprehension and critical thinking instead of the rote memorisation they were used to here.
Overlooked
An often overlooked aspect of this conversation is how the self-esteem of learners is negatively impacted because they are excluded from the learning process, making them see themselves as failures.
In the end, we have learners who are neither proficient in the English Language nor their native language (s) because they never understood any concept well enough to express themselves eloquently in any language.
As schools resume this January, I call on the Ministry of Education to not relent in its efforts to implement this policy.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) must ensure that teachers posted to various communities are conversant with the native language(s) and that there are adequate teaching and learning materials available in our native language(s).
I ask the Ghana National Association of Private Schools to encourage its members to fully comply with this policy.
Children learn best when they understand the language of instruction.
Will our concern for them move us beyond rhetoric to meaningful reform?
The writer is an educator/journalist with an interest in education policy, youth development & mental health.
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