Former National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) Director, Dr Prince Hamid Armah, has questioned the government’s denial of a policy to introduce Arabic and Chinese as foreign languages in Ghanaian schools, arguing that several official steps had already been taken towards implementation.
Dr Armah, a former Deputy Housing Minister and Kwesimintim MP, said the Education Ministry and its agencies had invested significant resources in developing the curriculum and preparing teachers for the proposed language programmes.
His comments follow President John Mahama’s assertion that Cabinet had not approved any policy to introduce Arabic and Chinese as foreign languages in schools and that the issue should therefore be put to rest.
But Dr Armah said the absence of Cabinet approval did not erase the work undertaken by government institutions before the matter became controversial.
He pointed to statements by Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu announcing that Chinese and Arabic would become compulsory foreign languages at the secondary school level as evidence that the proposal had moved beyond mere discussion.
“He did not whisper it. He linked it directly to the President’s own vision,” Dr Armah said.
He claimed the Education Ministry subsequently commissioned NaCCA to develop the curriculum, resulting in the mobilisation of 160 writers and reviewers for the exercise.
According to him, the curriculum was completed in July 2026 and formally presented to the Education Minister, with Arabic and Chinese included as foreign language options.
He said the curriculum was subsequently referred to the Ghana Education Service (GES) for review ahead of possible implementation.
Dr Armah said the sequence of events demonstrated that government agencies had treated the proposal as an active policy initiative, rather than a social media claim or an unapproved idea.
“When Ghanaians started asking questions, government did not say ‘we never considered this.’ Its defence was different: at the basic level, the languages would be optional, not compulsory. An admission that the policy existed,” he said.
He further claimed that NaCCA had trained teachers in the new Chinese curriculum shortly before President Mahama publicly dismissed the existence of the policy.
That, he said, raised questions about the authority under which public institutions had undertaken the curriculum development and teacher preparation.
“So what exactly is the President asking Ghanaians to put to rest? If there was ‘absolutely no new policy,’ who authorised the Minister to announce a compulsory language policy in the President’s name?” he asked.
He also questioned who authorised NaCCA to mobilise 160 experts, develop the curriculum and commit public resources to the exercise, as well as the subsequent referral of the curriculum to the GES and training of teachers.
Dr Armah said the controversy also exposed questions about the government’s preparedness to implement the proposed language policy, particularly concerning the availability of teachers capable of teaching Chinese.
He questioned why teacher preparation would have advanced if government had not first determined how the country would secure sufficient Chinese-language teachers.
“And if government did not know where Ghana would get Chinese teachers from – as the President himself now asks – why did it advance the policy to the point of training teachers before answering the most basic implementation question?” he asked.
Dr Armah maintained that Cabinet approval could be necessary before a policy became formally binding, but argued that the lack of such approval did not invalidate the preparatory work already carried out by state institutions.
“Cabinet approval may be the final step, but Cabinet approval does not erase the months of work that happened before it,” he said.
He insisted that the sequence of actions attributed to the Education Ministry, NaCCA and the GES required an explanation from government.
“The record is clear: The Minister spoke. NaCCA delivered. GES received it. Teachers were trained. That is not a rumour. That is a government caught implementing a policy it now denies,” Dr Armah said.
