Agona Swedru, Oct 18, GNA - The Executive Director of the Grassroots Empowerment and Peace Group, Mr Lewis Addae-Baah, has called for efforts to eliminate the "phobia in the study of science" among school pupils and students.

He said the negative tendency had affected the number of science teachers in the country's schools, which keeps on dwindling. Mr Addae-Baah was speaking at a workshop organised by the Group for 20 basic school science teachers in the Agona District sponsored by Charities Aid Foundation and the World Bank Office in Ghana.

He said this has affected the teaching of science in schools since most teachers handling the subject are not trained for it.

Mr Addae-Baah who is a tutor at the Swedru Secondary School noted that the methods being used are not appropriate because those handling the subject lack the basic teaching skills and know-how for the preparation and use of local materials.

"Very unfortunately for us, research results on simple science teaching models made by the Lecturers at the Cape Coast and Winneba Universities are just sitting on the shelves gathering dust," Mr Addae-Baah said.

"What needs to be done is to get these lecturers to disseminate the principles behind the preparation and use of such simple models to science teachers in our basic schools," he added. He said the workshop was to help students in rural areas to get a better understanding of some science topics and develop their interest in the subject.

Mr Addae-Baah said the Group would also assist to link students through the Internet to the advanced countries to enable them to learn science and to know the need for environmental protection. He said regular workshops for science teachers would help to upgrade their competence to handle the subject effectively. The Director told the trainees that members of the group would monitor their performance to know if they were using the knowledge for the benefit of their students.

Mr Addae-Baah said evaluation report of the project would be sent to schools, which did not benefit.