Education Minister Dr Mahendra Reddy says in all the External Examinations from 2015 to 2016, there has not been a single level which has attained percentage pass above 50 in Mathematics.
Speaking at the Nadi Secondary Schools Mathematics Teachers Workshop, Reddy said all Year 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 streams percentage pass in Mathematics have been below 50% in the past two years.
He says the highest percentage pass for Maths in any grade is 43% attained by Year 13 in 2015.
Dr Reddy says at most levels the lowest marks stand at zero, revealing the child has zero knowledge of the Maths concepts taught in the year or zero mathematics knowledge.
The Minister says citing the importance of Maths in our lives, he is now concerned on the problems these children will face in future.
Dr Reddy says a much closer analysis reveals that poor Maths results is right from the lower levels, the levels which are tasked to build the basics of Mathematics.
He says years 9 and 10 over the years have generated equally disappointing results in Maths.
The Education Minister highlights that some key areas of difficulties that are prevalent in most Secondary school students in their Maths acquaintance are multiplication table, addition and subtraction of more than 2 digit numbers, usage of formulae, conversion of measurement units such as changing from km to cm, basic 4 Maths operations with fractions and decimals, reading large numbers and are not comfortable with the math operations, changing of fractions to decimals and vice versa, interpretation and understanding of Venn diagrams and statistics.
Dr Reddy says while conducting a preliminary research with the teachers from some selected schools, many Head of Departments raised their concern that students are not able to perform well in Mathematics.
He says one of the reasons they give is that students do not know their basics from Primary Schools.
Dr Reddy says shifting the blame or burden helps no one.
The Minister says teachers need to change their focus, reflect on the past teaching method in Maths and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.
-Fiji Villege
