Ministry to host forum for Maths and Science teachers

The Ministry of Education is to organise a forum for all Mathematics and Science teachers across the country to brainstorm and develop effective strategies of improving performance of students.

The Ministry has, therefore, called for a holistic approach to strengthen and sustain efforts in improving the fortunes of the country’s educational sector.

Mr Enoch Cobbinah, the Chief Director at the Ministry of Education, said this in Accra at a national training of trainers of Mathematics programme, which brought together 200 teachers, selected from the basic, Junior High and Senior High Schools in the Western, Central and Northern Regions.

The programme is on the theme: “Revamping Mathematics Education in Ghana through Transformation”.

The training, scheduled for Aug 9 to 21, is organised by the Ghana Education Service and supported by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Oil and Gas Learning Corporation Foundation.

The trainers would be taken through topics such as Breaking the Mental Barrier in Mathematics, Cooperative Learning Strategies, Mathematics Modeling, Algebra, Magic Square and Deductive Reasoning on Platonic Solids.

Mr Cobbinah said a similar training was organised for the other seven regions and the programme was critical to help address the persistent challenges in Mathematics and Science.

He said the country was among eight developing countries that organised a study at a World Education Forum in Korea.

Mr Cobbinah said the study revealed that there was inadequate basic teaching of Mathematics and poor teaching methodologies, and urged member countries to develop effective methods in teaching Mathematics.

He stressed that the Chief Examiner’s report revealed that students performed poorly in Mathematics and Science subjects because some did not understand the questions while some teachers were unable to complete the syllabus.

He, therefore, urged teachers to be committed in appreciating the teaching of the subject and encouraged students to learn hard to justify the investment made in them by their parents.

Professor Sitsofe Anku, the President of Ghana Mathematics Academy, said the training was organised because there had been a considerable failure in Mathematics from the basic to the tertiary levels.

He said the country’s Mathematics curriculum was geared towards preparing students for exams instead of preparing them to be analytical to tackle real life problems.

Prof Anku said teachers, therefore, needed to understand the principles and methods of the subject to be able to teach students for easy understanding.

He encouraged students to appreciate the study of the subject because there was some Mathematics in every profession, saying the Academy had launched a book titled, “Mathematics Everywhere”, a career guide to motivate students to like the subject.

Prof Anku said the Academy held camps for students and workshops for teachers to nurture talents of students in Mathematics, stressing that students who had gone through the Academy had passed successfully.

Mr Andrew Badoo, the Executive Secretary of GNPC Foundation, said the support for the training was to build local capacity in training teachers to impart their skills to the students for better performances.

The Foundation was established to build local capacity in the oil and gas industry as well as award grants and scholarships to finance education.