ASSESSMENT OF THE AVAILABILITY OF TEACHING FACILITIES AND PERSONNEL IN THE DEPARTMENTS OF MATHEMATICS IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION OF NORTH EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The Nigeria Certificate in Education Mathematics (NCE) Programme is designed to produce Basic Education Mathematics teachers with appropriate knowledge and good understanding of teaching Mathematics at the Basic Education level. However, despite the good objective of the programme, there is a wide criticism of the NCE Mathematics teachers in recent times. There is a general lack of achievement in Mathematics at the Basic Education level, which many attribute to Mathematics teachers lack of competence. Although a programme may be good, it must be implemented properly to achieve its desired objectives. It is against this backdrop that this research was conducted on the availability of facilities and personnel required for the proper implementation of the programme in the North Eastern States Colleges of Education in Nigeria. A sample of eight out of fifteen Colleges that offer Mathematics from the region were selected based on convenience. Data was collected using a checklist, developed from National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) departmental requirements and a Focus Group Discussion. Analysis of the result shows that most of the departments have the minimum required number of lecturers. However, none of the departments has adequate number of the required facilities. It is recommended among others that, in order to improve the performance of the pre-service Mathematics teachers, it is necessary to equip the departments with the required teaching facilities so that Mathematics learning can be more meaningful and free from abstraction.