Accra, Sept. 10, GNA - The Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) on Monday appealed to government to re-introduce religious and moral education as a core subject in the curriculum of the new Education Reform, which begins on September 11. According to the Church, the current Education Reform had eliminated religious and moral education completely from the syllabus at the basic level, except at the lower primary where concepts of religious and moral education would be incorporated in the teaching of English and Ghanaian Languages.

"This is a very regrettable development in the light of the moral decadence which has bedevilled the nation's youth of late and the fact that the JSS level is the most crucial formative period of the teenager," the Moderator, Right Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso said at a press conference in Accra. The press conference was held to present the communiqu=E9 issues by the seventh General Assembly of the Church, held at Aburi in the Eastern Region from August 17 to 23, on the theme: " Let us go on to maturity".

Recommending that government brought back religious and moral education as a core subject at the basic and secondary levels, including the JSS, Rt. Rev. Dr Frmpong-Manso said the General Assembly believed that it would have been best if the reform was implemented in phases to ensure the success of the programme.

To save the reform from dying at birth, it was necessary that the Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PBME) of the Ministry of Education gave government far reaching technical and professional advice, Rt. Rev. Dr Frmpong-Manso said.

He said, "We believe that the implementation of the new system will carry with it a lot of challenges especially in the area of provision of infrastructure and motivation to teachers.

"The facts on the ground indicate that over four years now the first batch of model schools are yet to be fully completed and handed-over and the second batch are taking off slowly in few districts," he said adding that "speeding up the process may be helpful".

Touching on infrastructure, the Moderator said available estimates indicates that 51 per cent of public primary schools did not have kindergarten or nurseries.

"Additionally, while the reform emphasizes science and technology based programmes, the teacher demand and supply in these areas leave much to be desired.

"Recent media release reported that teacher supply as against demand from the universities were 28 per cent for Mathematics, 23 per cent for English, 35 for Integrated Science/Agriculture, four per cent for Physics, 42 for Chemistry and 34 for Biology. "This development could weaken the reform base and we urge government to endeavour to increase the number of teachers," Rt Rev Frimpong-Manso said.

On Vocational/Technical Education, which is one of the key areas under the reform, Rt. Rev. Dr Frmpong-Manso said, government had only 23 public Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions throughout the country and the reform was targeting at upgrading one more technical institution from each region.

"This is commendable, but given the above challenges, the financial outlay, which the reform is calling for is obviously very huge and may not be met adequately," the Moderator said.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Sports last Thursday September 6, announced that all was set for the takeoff of the new educational reforms and that the syllabuses to be used under the Education Reform 2007 were ready and had been accessible on the Ministry's website - www.edughana.net - since September 3.

The sector Minister, Professor Dominic Fobih, who announced this, said the Curriculum Research and Development Division (CRDD) developed the syllabuses for Kindergarten, Primary, Junior High School and the core subjects for the Senior High School.

"As part of efforts to get the syllabuses to the schools by the beginning of the academic year the Ministry duplicated the syllabuses onto compact discs and forwarded them to all District Directors," he said.