ONE year after the new educational reform programme has taken off, textbooks for the subjects under the reform are yet to be supplied to the schools. However, the Director of the Basic School Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Stephen Adu, thinks there is no cause for alarm, adding that the textbooks will be ready by the commencement of the next academic year, which is only two months away. Checks conducted by the Daily Graphic in some basic and second-cycle schools revealed that there were no relevant textbooks to match the new syllabi which were being used. Some teachers said teaching, particularly in the sciences, had become very difficult because they did not have materials on the topics in the new syllabi and so they had to rely on their ingenuity and professionalism to enable them impart knowledge to the children. They said, however, that there were only small variations in subjects such as English Language, Mathematics and Social Studies, adding that "because there are only a few variations in these subjects, we are able to handle them with ease". But Mr Adu told the Daily Graphic that textbooks for junior high schools (JHS) had to be provided before those for senior high schools (SHS) and explained that the experts were working on the modules for the training of senior high school teachers. He indicated that although some of the textbooks for SHS would delay, some would be ready for the training of the teachers. "Generally, there is no Cause for alarm, since the teachers are following the new syllabi for the reform. They were also asked to use the old textbooks, as the new ones were being prepared," he stressed. Mr Adu said only first-year students in JHS and SHS were using the new syllabi and that second and third-year students were using the old syllabi and textbooks from which examination questions would be set " We are very much concerned about getting some of the textbooks to the schools," he emphasised, and said the issue of there being no textbooks concerned 'those starting the new reform. At the primary level, where he said everything was new, the service was waiting for textbooks which would be ready by the beginning of the next academic year. The new educational reform programme began in September last year under the programme. Under the programme, kindergarten has been brought into the mainstream school programme, while the three-year junior secondary school (JSS) has been changed to JHS. The three-year senior secondary school (SSS) has also been changed to SHS, while the programme has been extended to four years. Source: Daily Graphic