By: Lilian Owusu-Mensah
The Director of Science Education at the Ghana Education Service, Olivia Serwaa Opare has said that girls can make it to the top of the ladder when it comes to science education when provided with the necessary resources.
“If we give the girls all the needed tools, I’m sure, they would go above the sky”, she stated.
Speaking on GTV Breakfast Show as part of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science with the theme ‘equity, diversity and inclusion: Water unite us’, she explained that the theme is simply to call for equal rights and unity amongst all.
“Equity, we should be given equal rights and opportunity. We are all celebrating this day because water is a universal solvent used by both males and females. Diversity, water could be used widely. It unifies all, without water life ceases to exist. Water has no limit so we need to manage our water from becoming polluted”.
She disclosed some factors that affect the love for science by the girl child.
“Very often it depends on some teachers, that is the approach they use in teaching the science. Girls by nature love doing and when you begin a lesson without considering the practical nature of the subject science and then you teach theoretically, the very first sight of the lesson you have killed the interest”, she stated.
She added that as part of the strategists to bridge the gap between girls and boys in science, there will be a science practical from upper primary to arouse the interest of science in girls.
“We are trying to bridge the gap. We need to start from upper primary, not even JHS because when science is taught in that practical approach the interest will be there and then it is when they get to JHS that one can make a decision as to whether the girlchild will offer sciences or not”, she added.
“We try to encourage teachers to assign roles and responsibilities during group activities to the girl child and in so doing their interest will be aroused”, she added.
In order to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the United Nations General Assembly declared 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2015.
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