Upper West Regional Minister Alhaji Sulemana Alhassan has persuaded science teachers to support the implementation of the double-track system at the Senior High School (SHS) level to help address growing enrolment figures.

He said for the policy to succeed and make the necessary impact, teachers including science teachers ought to get involved to offer ideas as to how it could be implemented to achieve the desired results.

Alhaji Alhassan who made the call during Ghana Association of Science Teachers (GAST) 60th Annual General Conference in Wa, encouraged the teachers to contribute meaningful ideas towards the successful implementation of the new policy.

The conference was on the theme: “Innovative and Practical way of the Teaching and Learning of Science and Technology”. He urged them to reflect on the theme and come up with modern ways of teaching the science subject in order to facilitate easy understanding of it by students.

If education would take its rightful place in national development, then attention must be placed on the teaching and learning of science and technology.He implored the teachers to go the extra mile to make their teaching relevant to the needs of students and society.

Reverend Thomas Kofi Arboh, President of GAST, said the Association believed that the double-track school system was a novelty, especially at a time the government has taken bold steps to ensure all qualified basic school students had access to secondary education.“We applaud that novelty, however, as an Association and as Teachers, we will want to re-emphasise some suggestions we have given to the Ministry before the intervention came to the fore”, he said.

“One significant thing about the double track system is that, the students will be having long vacations and we are suggesting that they engage in compulsory attachment to an industry that is into their area of study”, Rev Arboh added.It is expected that after their course, the students would have gained some employable skills from their industrial experience to be competitive in the job market or establish their own enterprises.

He said science teachers, particularly Physics teachers, were few in the system but would be expected to meet the double track and appealed to government to boost their pay.He said the GAST text book was very practical and urged the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service to consider giving them “positive discriminatory” tender advantage to help them raise funds to support their activities.

Mr Justine Kpan, the Public Relations Officer of the Regional Education Directorate, on behalf of the Regional Director of Education said the discussion on the selected schools for the double track system would soon commence.