Efforts are being made to reduce the number of books primary school children take to school as greater emphasis must be place on more teaching time.
So said Education Minister Anthony Garcia during yesterday’s news conference held at the Education Ministry.
Garcia also expressed concern that heavy bags could adversely affect a child’s health saying often times children were “weighed” down by thick textbooks.
He called on teachers to place greater emphasis on quality teaching time adding that efforts were being made by the ministry to ensure teachers received updated and necessary skills.
He said recommendations were also being made to have one textbook per subject.
“Aggressively we are going to pursue emphasis on teacher training,” Garcia added.
On the issue of teachers, Garcia said there was a “major imbalance” as in the majority of primary schools there were more female teachers than male.
He said boys, from an early age and especially those who came from a female headed household, needed a positive male role models in their lives.
“In several of our boys’ schools first of all you would have a female principal and very many female teachers and very few male teachers.
“Our male students need to have positive male figures in their lives,” Garcia said, adding that the absence of a father figure in the lives of boys was common.
Garcia said the ministry would be implementing measures to deal with this as there were many men who were seeking jobs in the teaching service.