Mr Minister of Education I must tell you that I am disappointed that you have not seen it fit to make French our base language. I heard when you declared that Spanish will now be taught at Primary Schools in a bid to make children bi-lingual. Can you tell us the rationale Sir for choosing Spanish over French?
After years of observation and research, I have come to realise that much of who we are as a people comes from the French culture. Even the way we speak and so on. There are still quite a few French words that we use unknowingly except for people who like to research things. My reason for making a case for French to be our ‘Mother tongue’ is because people need to be reminded that Grenada was once a French island and the influence is there up to today.
So in the absence of learning the language we continue to corrupt the spelling of even the names of places and sometimes document things wrongly. As a student of history, I follow closely the development of our living history. So I understand clearly the way we inherited an aversion maybe for the French language, because the colonial masters forced us into that. History has recorded that when the British took over, it was almost a crime to speak French, or reference anything French. That page was turned over into English – the English that even today we are struggling to learn. How many students still fail that subject at CSEC level?
Please Mr Minister of Education, let’s put strong meaning into what we do as we grasp the transformation agenda. Revisit the second language you want to introduce into primary schools. We may then see a greater interest in the French culture and all which will help us to even understand the remnants of Carnival that’s left with us. I am making a humble plea for generations to come that the government explores teaching French in primary schools in a bid to delve into a part of us that have been buried for so long.
Anonymous
