Relevance of the Mathematics Education Programmes of the Nigerian Colleges of Education to the Teaching of Junior Secondary Mathematics

Abstract

The education system in Nigeria is faced with a mirage of defects which hinged on man power used in carrying out the teaching and learning process. This study considers the relevance of the mathematics education programmes of the Nigerian Colleges of Education (NCE) to the teaching of junior secondary mathematics. This was with a view to providing necessary information for later mathematics education curriculum revision in NCE. The subjects of the study included Heads of departments of mathematics in five Colleges of Education in Southwestern Nigeria as well as 179 teachers of 49 secondary schools with the region. The employed a survey design with two instruments namely: Content Analysis Discrepancy Model (CADM) and Mathematics Teachers’ Questionnaire (MTQ) used to obtain the closeness of Colleges of Education mathematics curriculum with that of NCE and used to enquire which of the mathematics contents in JSS the teachers were equipped to teach, respectively. Findings from the descriptive analysis of data revealed that mathematics education programme run by the Colleges of Education was 96.36% relevant to the junior secondary mathematics curriculum. It is also revealed that all the NCE teachers can teach up to 70% of the JSS mathematics topics. The findings bring into focus the need that 82% of the experienced NCE and 18% less experienced NCE teachers wanted a review of the mathematics education programme of the Nigerian Colleges of Education.

Key Words: Students’ Achievement, Mathematics Education Programme, Junior Secondary School