Language Policy Debate in Ghana： A Means of Elite Closure

The language policy in Ghana＇s educational system has become an issue of debate in recent years. A change in the language policy from the local languages as the medium of instruction to English for the first three years of primary school in the year 2002 was reversed in 2004. It is obvious that the language policy adopted does not reflect in improvement in school achievement. The debate must go beyond the use of English or the local languages for the first three years of primary education to address the real issues that hinder school achievement. This paper examines the factors that hinder school achievement in Ghana and other developing countries. The paper argues that the problem of poor academic performance in Ghana is not due to the language policy adopted. The paper points out that the language policy is just a veil that the politicians use to perpetuate the use of English as the language of rule in the higher domains in order to preserve the privileges with which this language is associated. The paper concludes that politicians in Ghana use the language policy in education as a means to perpetuate elite closure.

A Preliminary Research on Middle School Students'Academic Subjective Well-Being and Its Major Influential Factors

This study is conducted with self-developed questionnaire on 910 middle school students,aimed at describing middle school students'academic subjective well-being and exploring its influential factors.Results show that(1)Academic subjective well-being of middle school students is generally low and there exist differences in different schools and grades.Students from non-key middle schools have lower academic subjective well-being than those from the key schools.Grade 2 students in both junior and senior middle schools have the lowest academic subjective well-being.(2)Factors directly affecting middle school students'academic subjective well-being are academic experience and the present academic achievements,with the former playing a major role.(3)Factors indirectly influencing middle school students'academic subjective well-being are social pressure and expected academic achievements,both of which influence students'academic subjective well-being through students'academic experience or their present academic achievements.