The Presbyterian Church of Ghana on Monday appealed to government to re-introduce religious and moral education as a core subject in the curriculum of the new Education Reform, which begins on September 11. According to the Church, the current Education Reform had eliminated religious and moral education completely from the syllabus at the basic level, except at the lower primary where concepts of religious and moral education would be incorporated in the teaching of English and Ghanaian Languages. "This is a very regrettable development in the light of the moral decadence which has bedevilled the nation's youth of late and the fact that the JSS level is the most crucial formative period of the teenager," the Moderator, Right Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso said at a press conference in Accra. The press conference was held to present the communiqué issues by the seventh General Assembly of the Church, held at Aburi in the Eastern Region from August 17 to 23, on the theme: " Let us go on to maturity". Recommending that government brought back religious and moral education as a core subject at the basic and secondary levels, including the JSS, Rt. Rev. Dr Frimpong-Manso said the General Assembly believed that it would have been best if the reform was implemented in phases to ensure the success of the programme. To save the reform from dying at birth, it was necessary that the Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PBME) of the Ministry of Education gave government far reaching technical and professional advice, Rt. Rev. Dr Frimpong-Manso said. He said, "We believe that the implementation of the new system will carry with it a lot of challenges especially in the area of provision of infrastructure and motivation to teachers. "The facts on the ground indicate that over four years now the first batch of model schools are yet to be fully completed and handed-over and the second batch are taking off slowly in few districts," he said adding that "speeding up the process may be helpful". Touching on infrastructure, the Moderator said available estimates indicate that 51 percent of public primary schools did not have kindergarten or nurseries. "Additionally, while the reform emphasizes science and technology based programmes, the teacher demand and supply in these areas leave much to be desired. "Recent media release reported that teacher supply as against demand from the universities were 28 percent for Mathematics, 23 percent for English, 35 for Integrated Science/Agriculture, four percent for Physics, 42 for Chemistry and 34 for Biology. Source: GNA