MINISTRY DECLARES TO RAISE PERFORMANCE IN MATHS SUBJECT.

Minister of Education, Science, Technology, and Vocational Training Prof. Joyce Ndalichako. (photo by Adrian Mgaya).

By Mtapa Wilson

The Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training has promised to solve some challenges to poor performance in mathematics subject among primary and secondary students in Tanzania.

The promise is made by the Director of Secondary Education, Ms. Paulina Mkonongo during the PI Day Celebrations held at Mnazi Mmoja ground, Dar es Salaam. In her speech, Ms. Mkonongo said that Mathematics is a catalyst of Science and Technology which, again, leads to industrial development. Therefore, emphasis on mathematics subject is core to the achievement of government economic policy based on Industrial development.

“We need more students to study mathematics so as to get more experts in the field of Science and Technology. This will help us to implement industrial policy in our country that has been expounded as vision for economic development by the fifth phase government of Honourable President John Pombe Magufuli.”  She added.

As part of this commitment, the government through the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, has started conducting various researches to find out solutions to students’ poor performances in mathematics subject in both primary and secondary schools.

“The Ministry is responsible to provide seminar trainings to the mathematics teachers.  There is also a dare need to encourage and motivate more students to study mathematics in order to help them overcome the fallacy that mathematics is tough” Ms. Mkonongo emphasized.

This year PI Day celebrations with slogan “Celebration is Mathematics is the basic foundation of Science and Technology” were held at the Mnazi Mmoja ground in Dar-es-Salaam. Various education stakeholders including teachers, students and the general public participated.  PI Day is celebrated on March 14^th every year around the world.

 PI is the Greek word which refer to the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter - which is approximately 3.14159. PI has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.