Why English-Arabic schools were established under Jerry John Rawlings

<p>Jerry Rawlings was the democratically elected president of Ghana on January 7, 1993</p> <p>Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, has explained why English-Arabic schools were established during the administration of the late former President Jerry John Rawlings.</p> <p>According to President Mahama, Muslim communities at the time were reluctant to send their children to school because of concerns that they could be converted to other religions.</p> <p>He said the Rawlings administration responded to the concern by introducing English-Arabic schools, allowing Arabic to be taught alongside the conventional curriculum and making formal education more acceptable to Muslim communities.</p> <p>President Mahama made the remarks on September 12, 2026, during a citizens’ engagement at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (UBIDS) in the Upper West Region as part of his Resetting Ghana Tour.</p> <p>“There is training of Arabic teachers because, in Rawlings’ time, we noticed that the Muslim communities were not sending their children to school. They were not sending their children to school because they were afraid that their children would be converted to some other religion. So, Rawlings introduced English-Arabic schools. They allowed Arabic to be taught in those schools,” he explained.</p> <p><em>Source: GhanaWeb</em></p>