Guinea-Bissau soldiers study Portuguese in the barracks

Guinea-Bissau soldiers are learning Portuguese in barracks classes as part of an unprecedented project that began with 60 trainees in Guinea’s capital and will be expanded to other units in the country starting in January.

The initiative arose from a request sent by Guinean authorities to the Camões Institute in Portugal and aims to help soldiers speak and write in the official language of Guinea-Bissau, which few Guineans speak.

It was this observation that prompted the Armed Forces to seek support for the “qualification of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers in Portuguese”, as Colonel Suaibo Camara explained to Lusa.

Military leaders stressed the importance and usefulness of the course, which began on Friday in Bissau with 60 students, to meet the need in the armed forces to have people “more efficient” in craftsmanship and writing, as well as in management. Portuguese language.

“The difficulty is global, it starts with the teaching itself, we do not have people with a degree in Portuguese and in this context people do not finish primary, secondary and high school well, so it is difficult for them to work with the Portuguese. language as our official language,” he said.

The country is dominated by the Creole language, and although the official language is Portuguese, “it is difficult to find someone who can prepare a report, a summary report, a narrative report in writing” in Portuguese, he noted.

One of the students on the course, soldier Rumana Biage, confirms that “people are already bad at leaving teaching” in relation to learning Portuguese, and notes that “even at university you can meet people with difficulties in speaking and writing.”

“If the base was not good, then the top will be the same, and that is what causes us to have difficulties,” he tells Lusa, who believes that the barracks course is “very beneficial and extremely important” for military training .

According to this soldier, “speaking good Portuguese is important for a soldier” who may be on a mission in Guinea-Bissau or another Portuguese-speaking country.

Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces want to have trained troops and hope to have “eight more groups as early as January” in different parts of the country.

According to André Costa Monteiro, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Portuguese Embassy in Bissau, this initiative “in the field of military cooperation and Portuguese language training is necessary for Portugal to bring both countries closer.”

“We see this initiative as a starting point in the field of Portuguese language teaching and I hope that it will develop in the future. This is necessary in order to bring the Portuguese military and the Guineans closer together by providing them with a working tool,” he said. thoughtful.

According to the diplomat, “it is in the interests of Portugal to initiate and develop this initiative in the future, if it is in the interests of the Guinean authorities to continue and deepen it.”

He also described the work carried out prior to the start of the course, citing as a specific example the manuals developed by the Camões Institute with the support of the Portuguese General Directorate of National Defense Policy (DGPDM) and three branches of the Portuguese Armed Forces. Strength.

This manual, as I said, “will allow us to train many students” not only in Guinea-Bissau, but also in other interested Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa (PALOP).

Professor Miguel Gama, in charge of one of the classes in Bissau, confirmed that the manual “addresses the four skills of speaking, writing, reading and helps overcome the difficulties faced by students.”

However, he believed that “this course in itself does not solve the problem, because language is a matter of practice.”

“The course gives the foundation, it gives the tools, but they (students) must continue to use the language in everyday communication,” he warned.

For the teacher, this project is “different from a regular class,” firstly because it is conducted in the military, where cadets are forced to divide themselves “between classes and military tasks.”