Saltpond, Jan 26, GNA - The Mfantseman District Director of Education, Mrs Matilda Bannerman-Mensah has called for a review of the curriculum of schools to make it suitable and relevant to the needs of the people.

Mrs. Bannerman-Mensah said, "we can not talk of quality education if the curriculum has no relevance to our everyday life and development as a nation".

She made the call at the opening a five-day training of trainers' workshop on the use of the revised Junior Secondary School syllabuses at Saltpond on Monday.

A total of 110 teachers and education officers from the district and 10 deprived ones from the Western Regions are participating in the workshop, which was one of the measures by the Ghana Education Service to improve teaching and learning.

Subject specialists from the Curriculum Research and Development Division (CRDD) of the GES are training the participants in 11 subject areas.

Mrs. Bannerman-Mensah attributed poor academic performance of pupils partly to lack of proper understanding of planned syllabuses for a course study by teachers.

I am therefore glad that you are here today and ready to help to get pupils acquire the knowledge and skills prescribed in the curriculum, she said.

The District Director expressed the hope that the workshop would help to achieve the objectives to meet the expectations of the people. Miss Judith Sakara, Assistant Director in-charge of the implementation Unit of CRDD who is the Coordinator of the workshop said was among other things to identify problems confronting teachers in the use of the new revised syllabuses and how to use them competently. 26 Jan 05