By Patrick Ofoe Nudzi, GNA
Accra, Feb. 27, GNA – Professor Isaac Wiafe, Head of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab at the Department of Computer Science, University of Ghana, has urged the government to invest in Ghana’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
He said such investment would advance local language technology and safeguard the country’s digital sovereignty.
Prof. Wiafe made the call at the 2026 International Mother Language Day Symposium, organised by United Nations Ghana in collaboration with the School of Languages of the University.
He explained that sustained investment would support the development of indigenous AI platforms capable of understanding Ghanaian dialects and addressing concerns such as profanity and security threats-issues that foreign systems like ChatGPT and DeepSeek may not adequately handle.
Speaking on the theme “Will AI Speak My Mother Tongue? Your Role in the Future of Ghanaian Languages,” Prof. Wiafe stressed that languages absent from the AI space risk losing relevance and influence in the digital era.
“Championing our own platforms that understand our languages is seriously long overdue. We need to have our own language models; we should not be seen feeding the other world. For me, this is pure slavery—we are not seeing it, but we are gradually getting there,” he said.
He warned that Ghanaian content increasingly resides on foreign platforms, which could erode local ownership of knowledge.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Prof. Wiafe said the government should allocate more resources to the sector, noting that the country already had the necessary manpower, with many students developing innovative models.
He said that a national AI policy should promote mother-tongue development, including neologisms to support education, build datasets, generate local language content, and develop speech recognition systems for Ghanaian languages.
Such a policy, he said, must also facilitate mother-tongue education tools, translate health and government information, and digitise oral traditions.
Prof. Wiafe also urged lecturers to adopt short videos in teaching, citing research that showed 90 per cent of youth preferred short-form content.
He also called for an end to the punishment of pupils for speaking vernacular in schools.
Mr. Zia Choudhury, Resident Coordinator of United Nations Ghana, emphasised that mother tongue shaped children, promoted cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, enhanced trade and quality education, and fostered an inclusive society.
“Let’s listen to the views of the children; let’s ensure that the education system supports languages they understand.
“Forty per cent of all learners worldwide still do not have access to education in the language they understand, according to UNESCO,” he said.
Prof. Josephine Dzahene-Quarshie, Dean of the School of Languages, University of Ghana, noted that although Ghana had policies to promote local dialects, implementation remained a challenge.
“The local languages are supposed to be used as the medium of instruction from kindergarten up to class three, but how strictly do we adhere to it?
“We have textbooks for the languages, but not for science, maths, agriculture and other subjects in our mother tongue,” she said.
She called for the establishment of vocabulary expansion agencies to coin new words and expressions in local languages to sustain and develop them.
GNA
Edited by Kenneth Sackey