Jet Stanley Madu
A university lecturer, Prof Carol Opara has observed that Linguistic Studies is not receiving the level of attention it deserves in the country. The Professor of French Language Studies who called on education authorities to encourage the study, described it as a strong tool for regional integration
In a chat with The Education Report, the lecturer advocated for adequate funding of educational and cultural exchange programmes in tertiary institutions. She pointed out that acquiring linguistic competences would help facilitate easy and effective interaction among scholars especially, during exchange programmes.
She suggested the need to equip boarders of various countries with officials who are verse in the lingua franca of neighbouring countries, noting that this will make for effective communication with trans-boarder scholars, traders and other travellers. She further explained that such move would help facilitate the implementation of the policy on free movement of goods, people and capital within the West African region.
Prof Opara, of the Department of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, explained the need for enhanced integration among the region “West Africa is a mixture of peoples, religions and most importantly, languages. For instance we find the Yoruba people in the Republic of Benin, Ghana and Togo. This was as a result of colonization.
“To this end therefore, the West African countries seek solution to solve their challenges confronting them in technology, infrastructure, agricultural output and lower costs of production as well as integration of their markets into the global world. They hope to achieve this through integration, which can interface in education, communications, language health, politics, socio-economic activities, transportation, security, through which they can be linked to other parts of the world.
“Human concerns necessitating integration and sub-regional effort to solve is myriad. Others include; security issues like cross-boarder kidnapping, militancy/terror attacks, Boko Haram and other insurgencies like the Fulani herdsmen attack etc. There are also, other man-made and natural disasters bothering on politics and economic issues where when one country is affected, spills to her sister nations’’.
The lecture indicated that the countries of the sub-region which hitherto, had been divided by the historic phenomenon of colonization provided the justification for the Ministries of Education of these countries to seek ways to overcome the challenging issue of disunity which resulted from impacts of colonising the continent.
Opara asserted that the prevalence of high level illiteracy, poor standards of living, civil wars, lack of infrastructure within the West African countries necessitated the quest for sub-regional solutions expected to be achieved through the activities of world agencies like the International Organization for French Speaking Countries (La Francophonie), the UN, UNESCO, WHO, AU, NEPAD and UNICEF.
She listed educational and cultural exchange progrommes among member countries as veritable tools of integration. Other unifying factors she listed include; provision of scholarships for students of neighbouring countries, visit of scholars and artists, organization of seminars and conferences, operation of libraries, organizations of festival broad, establishing and maintaining professorship in universities abroad. She maintained that these initiatives would ensure socio, political and economic gains, as well as boost bilateral and trade relations.
The language according to her, is taught throughout the world either as a foreign, maternal or as a second language in educational system of most countries of the world, with almost 120 million students and 500,000 teachers. “In addition, Opara explained, “French is popular in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, Latin America, Indonesia, Polynesia and the Middle East because of success of the French colonial ventures in the world. Currently, there are over 220million French speakers worldwide”.