STEP UP TEACHING OF SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS

Story: Tim Dzamboe, Ho

The president of the Ghana Association of Science
Teachers (GAST), Mr. H.K.K Graham has deplored the
downward trend and breakdown in the desired output in
science teaching and learning in schools.
He said there was the need for various measures to
put the science teacher as well as science teaching
back on track in the nation if science and technology
was considered as a fulcrum for a holistic national
development.
Mr Graham said this when he addressed the opening
ceremony of the 50th national science week at Ho last
weekend.
It was under the theme, “The New Educational Reform;
Empowering the Science and Technology Teachers for
National Development”.
Mr Graham said the new educational reform had
re-emphasised the importance of science and technology
hence the compulsory introduction of Information and
Communication Technology at the pre-tertiary level.
He however said the Ghana Education Service(GES) and
the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports had not
put any practical measures in place to re-awaken the
dormant but enthusiastic and sacrificial spirit in the
teaching of science.
He therefore called for the restoration of risk
allowance to science teachers since their work exposed
them to a lot of dangers adding that each science
teacher deserved a laptop to facilitate his job in
addition to an insurance coverage.
Mr Graham disclosed that studies had revealed that
the number of students that pursued science programmes
declined to three per cent as they climbed the
academic ladder.
He therefore suggested that science students should
be granted automatic residential accommodation at the
secondary and tertiary institutions to enable them
stay focused and give off their best adding that
scholarship packages should be instituted for
brilliant but needy students who desired to pursue
science courses to higher heights.
Making a presentation of the theme, the Volta
regional science coordinator, Mrs Sylvia Emma Draphor
said the adoption of science and technology as the
basis of achieving sustainable development must be
accorded paramount importance.
She therefore advocated for more inputs in the
training of teachers and the provision of adequate
teaching equipment on ICT to address the challenges of
lack of trained teachers and to provide access to
worldwide information resources.
In address read on her behalf, the Volta regional
director of GES, Mrs Olivia Sosu called for a review
in the science and technology curriculum with the view
to evolving new approaches on a science culture.
‘A science culture, I believe should begin with
science education right from the kindergarten level
through to the University”, she stated.
She said the review should include science and
health; science and infrastructure, industry and
industrialization; science and food sufficiency,
science and self employment and local technology and
science and democracy and development.
Mrs Sosu stressed that innovation or creativity must
be nurtured in science education and students and
teachers who exhibit exemplary talents must be
identified and given all the support that would make
them inventors, innovators and possibly the Nobel
Prize winners.