The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has donated about 10,000 Mathematics books to 95 schools across the country to encourage students to develop the passion for the core subject as part of their corporate social responsibility.

The goal of the initiative is to ensure that every secondary school student have access to a Mathematics book which should easily be available in their library.

The Director-General of GPHA, Michael Luguje said the gesture is part of plans to help improve studying mathematics in secondary schools across the country.

He said the inability of some students to develop themselves in mathematics has contributed largely to the mass failure of the subject as they usually face trauma in the study of the subject.

“It is a privilege for us as Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority to be associated with this textbook which is meant to contribute towards the teaching and learning of Mathematics at the Senior High School level. We’ve all gone through secondary education and mathematics unfortunately for a lot of us has never been a popular subject, for which reason if there is any initiative to support the teaching and learning of mathematics, every responsible corporate citizen must support it,” Michael Luguje said.

On his part, the Minister of education, Mathew Opoku Prempeh while expressing profound gratitude to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority admonished the students to be upbeat about the study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as government is planning to heavily invest in that regard. In view of this, Opoku Prempeh disclosed government is building 10 STEM centres nationwide where students will have the luxury to study.

The education minister reiterated that as part the package for the STEM project, the ministry of education will offer special support for weak students by procuring past West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) questions and employ chief examiners to take such students through the subjects.

“Government has made money available, Ghc55 million to support teaching and learning and revision and it’s going to be split into buying things like these revision books for everybody. Teachers are going to have their support to do extra tutorials for especially the weak students in the school and also the students are going to be motivated by provision of their own textbooks and other revision past test that are going to be supplied as well with time, so that you don’t have an excuse as a student to fail,” the Education Minister disclosed.

Two headmasters of the beneficiary schools, Keta Business College, Etse Seake-Kwawu and Jonathan Delase Agbley of Peki Senior High School both expressed gratitude to the GPHA for the good gesture and pledged to put the books to good use.

“Mathematics is a challenge to 30% of all students in Ghana over the years and therefore if at this time GPHA has found it necessary to complement government’s efforts by tackling mathematics for that matter science and technology because Maths forms the basis of science and technology, I think this will go a very long way to affect generations which are yet to be born,” Etse Seake-Kwawu of Keta Business College said.

The beneficiary schools from the Volta, Central, Brong Ahafo, Greater Accra and Ashanti regions include Tema Senior High School, Kinbu Senior High School, Gomoa Senior High School, West Africa Senior High School and Nungua Senior High School among others.