THE OKYENHENE, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin II, has called on the government to improve the conditions of service for teachers in the country as a motivation towards improved teaching and learning.
According to the Okyenhene, every educational system with acceptable learning outcomes can only be attained if teachers are adequately motivated, since they are key to the realization of national development objectives.
The Okyenhene, who doubles as the President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, was speaking at Ofori Panin Fie, Kyebi, in the East Akim Municipal Assembly, during a Mathematics International Conference (CEMATHS) and Workshop under the theme, “Inspiring The Mathematics Genius Within.”
According to Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, who is the Patron of CEMATHS, “Teachers have experienced low and irregular salary payments, lack of proper housing, inadequate teaching facilities, low status and limited opportunities for professional development. Poor incentives also mean that far too few qualified and experienced teachers want to work in schools in rural areas where the large majority of the population and the poor live.”
He said mathematics has become what he called “a barrier to social access and progress of the youth” because “almost half of the youth who applied to join the police and the immigration services in the recent recruitment exercises went back home in frustration upon realising that a credit in mathematics was a non-negotiable requirement.”
He noted, “In this context, the social and economic panorama is unfairly skewed in favour of the urban youth as against the rural dwellers.”
According to the Okyenhene, the massive failures in mathematics recorded in the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a product of many years of neglect and failure of leadership to motivate teachers, increase funding on education in general and mathematics education in particular.
“We commend the NPP government for implementing the bold and historic free secondary education policy contained in their party manifesto. Apart from its ability to resolve social, ethnic, geographical and gender inequality, free public secondary education will address the root causes of underdevelopment, the lack of opportunity for the youth and the building of a modern industrialised society,” the Okyenhene underscored.
The East Akim Municipal Education Director, Mrs. Elizabeth Amankwah, said the mathematics had become a feared subject for most students and it continues to receive poor patronage throughout the country.
She said it was not surprising that most remedial schools register more students in mathematics than any other subjects, adding that if the right motivation and current state of the art of methodologies for the teaching and learning of mathematics are applied, students will be able to pass well in their final examinations.
The Municipal Chief Executive, Owusu Twum-Ampofo, expressed worry over the embarrassing outcome in the 2017 BECE in mathematics and science, particularly in the municipality.
Other speakers from the CEMATHS team were Prof Leonard Herman Boehm and Prof Joseph Ofori Dankwa
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Kyebi