http://solutionclass.com

Interview, the President,
Mathematical
Association of Nigeria
(MAN),
who is a Professor
of Mathematics, Prof.
Mohammed Ibrahim
speaks on the persistent
mass
failure in
mathematics and other
issues
pertaining to
mathematics education in
Nigeria.
Excerpts br /> Why do we
have
mass failure in
mathematics?
There is what we call
mathematical phobia.
Most
students when they hear
the
word mathematics,
they have this special
fear. The
issue of hatred
for mathematics can be
looked
from three main
angles – namely students,
parents and the
society. Students are not
always
happy or
comfortable with
mathematics.
Why? It could be
the methodology the
teachers
use or the
teachers themselves,
because
many are not well
trained. In Mathematical
Association of Nigeria
(MAN), we organise
workshops
from time to
time, to give teachers the
latest
techniques on
how they can be able to
teach
effectively from
primary school to tertiary
level.
Secondly, the issue of
Information Technology
br />
most students and
teachers as
well can’t use
handsets to operate e-mail
or
even know about
computers. In advanced
countries, right from
primary school, most
students
are exposed to
computer techniques etc
as a
way of teaching
mathematics. Failure of
mathematics depends on
methodology. Once a good
teacher is given the
task he would think of the
best
way of doing the
task.
Is there any way
government
can come in?
Sure. There are four
countries
making
sustainable development
namely
Singapore,
Cyprus, Malaysia and
China.
They operate what
we call ‘catch them
young’. You
teach children
right from the beginning.
Teach
them
mathematics of
everything you
see around.
Counting, stepping, angles
and
so on. From there
they grow. So government
should introduce a
kind of incentives to
teachers
starting from those
in the primary schools.
For students, there should
be a
special bursary
for anyone that shows
special
love to the subject.
For instance, Unilorin VC
awards special prize of
customised iPad for best
primary school pupil in
mathematics, best JSS3
student,
best SS2 student
and overall female best
student
in mathematics
in Olympiad organised in
36
states. If the federal
government can assist in
recognising these
students, encourage them
by
awarding them
bursary it will help. And
for the
teachers,
government can give
them
mathematics
allowances.
There can’t be any
development
in this country
without mathematics. For
Nigeria to be among
the 20 leading countries in
the
year 2020, we
should beat Italy, India,
China,
Japan and
Malaysia. And there can’t
be
scientific
breakthrough without
mathematics.
Is mathematics relevant in
solving some
societal problems like
Ebola?
Oh yes, we have a special
branch of mathematics
known as ‘mathematics
modelling’. Here, we
mainly do stability
analysis
where we take people
through what we call
population. We want to
know history by
categorising
people into three or
four sub-classes, namely
susceptible, who are
people likely prone to
these
diseases? All of us
are prone to Ebola. We
have the
infectious class
just like the Liberian
Sawyer
that came into
Nigeria.
Liberia is aware that the
man is
not well and
introduced him to a class
of
Nigeria. So, in
mathematical modelling,
we try
to use classifi-
cation and operational
dynamics. When we talk
about a disease, we need
to
study whether it’s a
virus, bacteria, or
parasite and
from there you
now reduce it to
differential
equation.
From here,
we arrive at stability
analysis.
From there we play
with the figure and be
able to
show that if you
have one million people in
the
country and this is
introduced, how many
people
are likely to
contract the disease at
any
given time.

Culled from http://solutionclass.com

Everybody just like killing each other's Ego.
Nkechi would be like
nkechi: sister Ada help me solve this.
Ada: maths is too difficult jawe,i hate it.

from that time nkechi sef don hate maths.
And it goes like that from Parents to children and from generation to ......

lolz

Well,Mr. President has a point there

Elegbede205:
Everybody just like killing each other's Ego.
Nkechi would be like
nkechi: sister Ada help me solve this.
Ada: maths is too difficult jawe,i hate it.
from that time nkechi sef don hate maths.
And it goes like that from Parents to children and from generation to ......

this affects someone that doesn't like maths already.