Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, Eastern Regional Minister, on Friday called on the Centre for School and Community Science and Technology (SACOST), to spearhead research and multi media development activities, to unearth science and technology concepts embedded in the informal sector.
He said the Centre should strive to wave its findings into the science curriculum in an attempt to indigenise the subject and make it more familiar and relevant to learners.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo made the call when he opened a two-day regional workshop on SACOST in Koforidua, on the Theme: "Toward the contextualization of the Teaching and Learning of Science and Technology."
Contextualization is a method of embedding disciplinary materials in the fabric of culture, time and experience of the leaner.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said the vision of the National Science and Technology policy was to lift Ghana to a Middle income country through the perpetuation of science and technology at all levels.
"In order to achieve this, the Ghana Education Service system have been designed to train scientific minds and develop a scientific culture for the country."
He said science education was supposed to build citizens who would deal objectively with phenomena practical issues instead of relying on superstition for explaining the nature of things.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo observed that science context and resources available to teachers for instruction was inappropriate, leading to the alienation of pupils.
"The resultant effect is the production of science graduates who can vociferously rattle scientific concepts and use all the big jargons in science but are unable to use these same science jargons in explaining phenomena and solving unique problems in the environment in which they find themselves."
He expressed optimism that the workshop would expose the participants to some of the context based multi media supplementary science materials, which would be used by science teachers.
Professor Kolawole Raheem, Co-ordinator of SACOST, said the workshop was aimed at introducing some of the context based multimedia supplementary scientific materials for use by science teachers.
It also aimed at upgrading the skills of teachers to relate to the context they teach, to the pupil's local context and culture.