More incentives needed for Maths teachers

Professor Emmanuel Kwame Essel, Academic Director at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), has said there is the need for Government to provide incentives that would entice mathematics teachers to stay in the classrooms.

He said many good mathematics teachers at all levels in public schools were leaving the classrooms to seek employment in other fields to earn higher salaries because teaching the subject had become unattractive.

Professor Essel said this during a public lecture organized by the Institute in Cape Coast.

The event was on the theme:” The role of AIMS in the development of Africa”.

“Now a lot of teachers with good mathematical background are leaving the classroom for other jobs and many mathematics teachers we have today do not have strong interest in the subject”, he said.

Professor Essel said the situation called for pragmatic measures to attract mathematicians to take up the teaching of the subject to help reduce the rate of failures at all levels in the society.

He said mathematical thinking was a necessary tool for understanding African problems and there was the need for institutional structures to use specific logical solutions to address problems.

He said the education sector needs to ensure that every basic school teacher had core competencies in teaching Mathematics, General Science and Information Communication Technology to be able to prepare the pupils for higher practical courses in future.

Professor Essel said AIMS over the past 12 years had contributed immensely to solving problems in the farming, fishing, education, health and other sectors of the local economy.

AIMS Ghana has provided in service training for more than 100 basic school mathematics teachers in Central and Eastern Regions to help them improve upon their content level in mathematics through its ‘Teacher training project’, he said.