The Authors Nicholas Arthur-Baidoo Jnr, Elsie Edinam Avevor, Mustapha Bello, and Francis Kwesku Essel are members of the Ashesi Accessibility Team. The team advances disability inclusion by providing disability inclusion training and sign language services across the university.
A Language Waiting to Be Heard
In every corner of Ghana, language lives. It is expressed in various ways and represents our identity. These languages are recognised, celebrated, taught in schools, and used in Parliament. Yet there is another Ghanaian language, one that speaks not through sound but through body movement, visuals, and gestures. Ghanaian Sign Language (GhSL) is the mother tongue of over 110,000 Deaf Ghanaians and the primary means of communication for many thousands more within their families and communities (Ghana National Association of the Deaf, 2022; Ghana Statistical Service, 2021). Like any spoken language, GhSL possesses all five linguistic dimensions: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Despite being a complete and naturally evolving language, GhSL remains unrecognised by the State.
This silence comes at a high cost, manifested in broken educational outcomes, denied justice, compromised healthcare, lost economic productivity, and the daily erosion of human dignity. As Ghana strives to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 4 (Quality Education), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities), the exclusion of an entire linguistic community from full participation in national life is a contradiction we can no longer afford. This paper calls upon the Government of Ghana, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Parliament of Ghana, and all relevant stakeholders to take immediate and decisive action: recognise GhSL as an official national language.
The Human Right to a Mother Tongue: GhSL as the Foundation of Identity
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation [UNESCO] (2020), “mother tongue” refers to “the language a person acquires in early childhood, typically at home, and uses as their primary instrument of thought and communication.” This is a right for every child from birth. However, only approximately 5 to 10 percent of Deaf children experience GhSL as their first language. The majority, over 90 percent, are born into hearing families with no prior knowledge of sign language (Fobi & Oppong, 2022; Humphries et al., 2019). For these children, GhSL becomes their accessible mother tongue only when they finally encounter it, often late and inadequately, at schools for the Deaf, where they first comprehend the world, form thoughts, and express their innermost selves.
Language is not merely a tool for communication; it is the vessel of identity, culture, and cognitive development. A child who cannot access language in their formative years (0 to 5 years) is not merely delayed but deprived of the foundation for future learning. Recognising GhSL affirms that Deaf Ghanaians possess a linguistic identity as valid and valuable as any spoken language community. As the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations has consistently advocated, “Nothing About Us Without Us” must include the right to exist and thrive in one’s own language (Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations, 2023). To deny recognition to GhSL is to tell an entire community that their way of being, communicating, and knowing is less legitimate than a form of linguistic discrimination that has no place in a modern, inclusive Ghana.
The Current Educational Crisis: Delayed Access, Lost Potential
The lack of official recognition for GhSL has created a crisis in Deaf education that begins at birth and persists throughout life. Hearing children in Ghana are immersed in language from the moment they are born. They absorb vocabulary, grammar, and syntax naturally from parents, siblings, and communities. By the time they enter kindergarten, they possess a rich linguistic foundation ready to be expanded through formal education.
Deaf children, by contrast, often face a “linguistic vacuum” and arrive at school without a first language (Obosu et al., 2023). They enter classrooms not as linguistically equipped learners but as children deprived of the most basic human need: language and communication. For decades, schools meant to serve them have lacked a standardised, nationally approved GhSL curriculum. The result has been catastrophic. Deaf students leave school functionally illiterate, unable to read or write at levels that allow further education or meaningful employment. A 2021 study by the University of Cape Coast found that Deaf learners consistently underperform compared to their hearing peers, not due to a lack of intelligence but to a lack of accessible instruction in their own language.
The recent development of a harmonised GhSL Curriculum by NaCCA and the Ghana Education Service, validated in November 2025, is a historic and welcome step (NaCCA & Ghana Education Service, 2025, November 7). However, a curriculum without official language status is like a building without a foundation. Official recognition would embed this curriculum into the national education framework, mandate teacher training in GhSL, and ensure that Deaf children receive the quality education they are entitled to. Evidence worldwide shows that countries recognising national sign languages, such as Uganda (1995), Kenya (2010), South Africa (2023), and numerous Western nations, report higher literacy rates, greater academic success, and improved life outcomes for Deaf learners (World Federation of the Deaf, 2023). Ghana must learn from these examples.
