SHS STUDENTS: Suffer Decline In Mathematics And Science Performance

Prof. Naana Opoku Agyemang, Education Minister

Performances of Senior High School (SHS) students in mathematics and science have seen a downward trend from 2007 to 2015, Professor Jonathan Fletcher has said and urged a swift reversal of the trend to spur national development.

Prof Fletcher, who is the Dean of Faculty of Education at the University of Ghana, blamed the appalling performance in the two core subjects on poor policy initiatives, application of wrong teaching methods, unqualified teachers and poor preparation by students towards examinations.

The Dean made this known during the West African Examination Council’s (WAEC) 21st Endowment Fund lecture held on the theme: "Performance in Mathematics and Science; Breaking the jinx."

The lecture forms part of the Council’s 64th annual meeting, the “biggest” gathering on the examining body’s annual calendar, of which the Ghana Chapter of WAEC is hosting the event this year.

Professor Fletcher ascribed the poor performance in limited teaching and learning resources, unqualified mathematics and science teachers flooding the education sector and lack of preparation of students to invest quality time in studies and examinations.

He said the teacher training institutions in many cases trained teachers to master the pedagogy [teaching skills] to handle mathematics and science, but unfortunately, those teachers are deficient in the content of the subjects.

In other instances, he said, graduates billed to teach the two core subjects, could have control of the subject matter, but lacked the pedagogy to deliver the lessons with the appropriate alacrity and teaching aids.

“If we want to halt the rot, we have to look at what is happening, weak computational skills of students, low confidence of students, and teachers doing the same thing over and over again,” he said.

Quoting copiously from leaders of the United States of America, United Kingdom and China, Prof Fletcher said they have used deliberate policies to promote the teaching and learning of mathematics and science to spur their technological advancement and growth, but the Ghanaian society was still characterised with superstitious beliefs.

“Science and technology are the good areas we must embrace to spur growth, but our system is too much of superstition, a lot of things are based on superstition instead of science,” Prof Fletcher said.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimated in 2015 that if Ghana could realise universal basic skills this would increase the country’s gross domestic product by 2000 per cent.

He said mathematics, science and technology are the panacea to the country’s development challenges, but regrettably, Ghana had only become the consumers of technology instead of producers.

Prof Fletcher also presented records that show that students’ performance in Mathematics rose from about 25 per cent in 2007 to peak at around 43 per cent and finally tumbled to around to 24 in 2015.

While the performance in science in 2007 recorded a little over 23 per cent, it rose to 56 per cent and thereafter dropped to about 23 per cent in 2015.

GNA

Editorial

WE CAN’T JOKE WITH SCIENCE

The news that the students’ level of performance in Science and Mathematics are falling is not one that should be taken for granted.

For a country whose place in the global economy for more than a century is a producer of raw materials  whose prices are determined by outside forces, the performance of our students in science should be a matter of priority and concern.

We produce gold, but refined gold products are refined elsewhere with our raw material because we currently do not have the technology to transform our raw material into a more valuable product.

It is a similar story with other metals and even agricultural produce. There have been tentative efforts by some enterprising Ghanaians but these are not developed enough to transform our economy.

Surveys reveal that we have a lot more minerals than we are currently mining. Such resources require a degree of expertise and the right technology to bring them out and process them. To get such endeavours underway, we need a critical mass of scientists who with the necessary support can help create the kind of industries needed to propel us forward.

This is one reason why students under performing in science is not something we should live with.

The world is changing fast, new alloys are being created every day and the industries and countries, creating these products are the ones who create new job opportunities and ensure the advancement of technology.

 Most of us also want to be in the vanguard of technological progress, but we cannot get there only by wishing. We need to see falling achievement in such important subjects as a matter of crisis and put in place the remedies that ensure that we produce the needed manpower for development.