INTRODUCTION In a developing country like Nigeria there is a need to provide educational facilities to meet with the socioeconomic and

political demand of a self relevant nation. Schools provided by the missions and private sectors are inadequate to meet up with the human resource development required. Hence the need for the introduction of universal primary education (UPE) in 1955 in the western region and in 1957 in the eastern region, a report from the Ashby commission of 1959 reflects on the following problems which until date are still deteriorating in our educational institution. These include 1. 2. 3. 4. Lack of good educational policy Absence of standards Loops holes in our curriculum system and Inadequate fund Despite the progress to redirect the educational system towards the achievement of these goals always seems to fail and this can be attributed to the fact that Nigeria inherited foreign pattern of educational system which they are not always ready to tailored to the lettered. Just recently it was believe that they will be a general change in the educational sector and this is because of the new change of some policy like the introduction of national policy on education

which brought about some pragmatic changes with emphasis on comprehensive and continuous assessment in schools this can be reflected in our senior school certificate examination which now has the objective of multiple choice question type as their pattern. Although these changes have not produced a very good result because the prevailing system encouraged memorization favoring cognitive development above other domains of education (Bolaji.,2007) Also the practical of continuous assessment has great demand on the teachers time, particularly in view of their heavy work load and the large number of pupils to assess, as a result the objective of the assessment is open to question. Overall, there has been over emphasized on paper qualification, accerating the incentives to examination malpractice and the emphasis on learning by rote (UNESCO.,2001) Although the level of education in Nigerian are basic education level, Senior education level, and tertiary level, for the purpose of this work, much emphasis will be laid on the senior level. The federal government has been very supportive of secondary education this is seen through the federal ministry of education (FME) acts as a liaison on education matter between Nigerian and foreign countries, international and national organization, agencies and foundation. These are the administrative segment of the federal ministry of education (FME); The National Education Research and Development Council
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(NERDC), the joint consultative committee on education (JCCE). The West African council, the National Examination Council, Joint Admission and Matriculation Council and the National University Commission. Learning is a difficult process to the student because student are not engaged and teaching is often poor. Time on tasks and engagement are low. Peers stigmatization and ostracization that is the student gives silent support to those who disturbed in the class or try to get teacher off track. Poor teaching derives from the low standard for entry into secondary school teaching, the common practice of assigning teachers teach subject they didnt study while in college, also the low salaries and poor working condition of the secondary teachers and pressure on teacher to entertain at the expense of rigor and to pass students who have not mastered the rudiment of the subject. This now lead to the question like why do student study so little in mathematics? Why do teachers demand so little? Why are wage set so low that sufficient of qualified teachers cannot be recruited? Research has shown that the problem are due to the following reasons, lack of student, staff and school accountability for learning (Duriyi .,1980) In a technological age like ours, national survival above the level mere existence demands a citizenry with a scientific outlook, a citizenry that understand the general principle of cause and effect in natural phenomenon. The
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production of scientific and technological manpower therefore depends on the quality of science and mathematics taught at the secondary school, since this represent its main starting point According to Chike Obi (1980), the foundation of science and technology is mathematics and this was further substantiated by Abdullahi (1982) when he expressed the fact that the production of machine part have automated through the use of numerical control of computer to affect accuracy of part and eliminate wastage. se The lift we use either to carry luggage or people have designed using mathematics with a view to overcome our physical limitation. In fact the

important and usefulness of mathematics cannot be overemphasized .Aburimen (1984 ) described as the queen of all science and the only language of

expressing, scientific ideas. Mathematics is a very important subject in the curriculum. The importance is reflected in the number of instructional periods provided for it in the school time table. EMEKWULU (1981) OBSERVED that a good pass grade in mathematics at the G.C.E/S.S.CE has been emphasized as a requirement for candidates offering physical sciences, medicine, Engineering and even nowadays in social science like economics and geography .the person who set the whole controversy was no less a person, than that of Chike Obi from whom most Nigerian mathematicians derive their inspiration for mathematical studies. In
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February 1976, Chike Obi called for abolition of modern mathematics due to the fact that there was no nationally articulated policy on the teaching of modern mathematics in Nigerian schools and it non-applicable to and non-compatibility with Nigeria s standard of development. This in compliance with professor Clarion Cur, the federal government took panic measures by scrapping modern mathematics off as Entebbe Arithmetics of the belief then was the introduction of modern mathematics was responsible for the poor performance of note that there is no evidence to show that there is any noticeable difference in the performance of students before and after the episode. Both the federal ministry of education and national certificate on education (NCE) in October, 1977 saw the need for the evolution of new national syllabuses on mathematics. finally the Nigeria educational research council (1977)produced new mathematics curriculum after the publication of a book titled A study of problems and issues of mathematics teaching in Nigeria ,which has been widely circulated ,the evolution and adoption of an appropriate national mathematics curriculum is by itself not a sufficient preparation for the improvement for mathematics education in the country, A good curriculum requires to backed by suitable instructional materials although all these effort has been made, the interesting question is, has the performance of students at the SSCE examination in mathematics improved?
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Ebighe (1983)stated that

statistics shows it and it is evident to students school administrations and parents that despite the emphasis on making mathematics a compulsory and a dally taught subject in secondary school ,there has continued to be poor performance in mathematics in G.C E/SSCE examination .It is on improving performances in mathematics that the researcher wishes to contribute her quota that alot of people have become deeply concerned about performance of secondary school students in SSCE mathematics examination .the reason for this ,is that the subject is becoming more and more important every day . In spite of the great role mathematics plays in our life, many people (especially school children) have complained bitterly about the subject .Emekwulu (1981) stated mathematics has all through the ages earned so many nicknames both from the hold and young primary school and secondary level, student see

mathematics as their greatest enemy and should not be taught mere mention of the subject leaves a majority of the girls in tears let alone giving them mathematics test The study specifically attempts to analyze the present level of performance of secondary school student in the senior school certificate examination in Uvwie local government area.

Issues like variety of performance from school to school, problem associated with teaching mathematics teachers, qualification, instructional material used in teaching will be among the key factor that concerns this study. The study will also look into efforts being made to improve the teachers. This study provides answer to the following question, do student exposed to sufficiently qualified mathematics teachers performs better in mathematics than student exposed to unqualified mathematics teachers? Is there any significant difference between the performance of student between those in large class and those in small class? Do student in school with sufficient supply of teaching aid achieve better in mathematics than those with insufficient supply of teaching aids ? The following are research hypothesis derived from the research questions. There is no significant difference between student exposed to

sufficient qualified mathematics teacher, there is no significance between the student performance in large class than those in small class, student in school with sufficient supply of teaching aids aids not achieve better in mathematics than those with insufficient suppy of teaching aids, student with better interest in learning mathematics do not achieve higher than student with poor intrest in learning mathematics.

Examination people say is not the true test of knowledge this notwithstanding the importance of examination as a means of measuring aftermath behavior of individual having passed through a system of education cannot be over stressed. The purpose of the study is to find out how well, the student have been doing mathematics as a subject, to the factor that they may be responsible for good or bad performance in mathematics, to find out how qualification of mathematics teachers vary from school to school and the performance of student in relation to his or her variation to establish the different levels of performance in various secondary school and to look into efforts being made to improve in SSCE mathematics examination. Finally there is a growing need in all societies for scientist, technicians, engineers, economist, statistician and experts in the various technologies and other field in order to do their work efficiently and they need a good knowledge of mathematics. It therefore means that student must acquire enough background in order to fit into various field of human endeavour. Alibi (1985) said that lack of mathematics knowledge or inability to make it at the G.C.E/ SSCE ordinary level examination students

By examining the performance of student in the mathematics at the GCE/SSCE ordinary level examination the researcher feels that at the end of his/her study guideline will be provided to the government and school administration whether to revise the curriculum, improve instruction/structural facility of education system and re-examine the method of teaching mathematics and possibly provide or dissipate more qualified teachers in mathematics to these region. The proximate cause of poor performance in senior school certificate examination in Uvwie local government area of delta state can be broadly grouped into three main headings y Teachers quality y Student engagement y And school culture I will like to begin by examining the proximate cause of low achievement at the end of secondary school and this is subdivided as follows y Teacher quality y Teacher compensation y School expenditure y Time devoted to instruction and study of mathematics
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y Engagement effort per unit of scheduled time for mathematics y Nerd harassment /formative clinck y Student preferences for easy subjects y Pressure on the teacher to lower standard y Lack of rewards for learning from employer TEACHER QUALITY This has a very big effect on student learning the teacher general academic ability and knowledge are the characteristics that most consistently predict student learning (Hanushek 1979, Strauss and Sawyer 1986, Fergwon 1990, Ehrenberg and Brewer 1993, Monk 1992). Teaching secondary school doe not attract the kind of talent that can necessitate a good outcome, this is reflected by McDowell (1970), in his examination of the teacher qualification the effect of science curriculum identify certain problem that militate against the effective teaching of mathematics fin school. One of the problem identified is that large majority of the science are unqualified and secondly that even the unqualified teachers do not remain long enough to provide the much needed of continuity in most sciences programme stated. To compliment their findings McDowell, Ikponmwonsa (1978), said only few of the science teacher have professional qualification. Also most of these
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unqualified teachers use method that are most unconduncive

in altering

scientific concept and altitude in school also kalejaiye (1979) wrote on the poor performance of student in mathematics in senior school certificate

examination(SSCE) according to him scarcity of trained mathematician and poor teaching method are the reason behind poor student performance, speaking more on teacher quality Duruyi (1980) poor teachers produce none other than poor pupils also Auckege (1977), revealed that inadequate teaching posed the greatest contributory factors, the recurrent poor performance, the student were not afforded a fair chance of performing satisfactorily at the examination through inadequate teaching activities in school In most private schools, school administrations are also remarkable willing to hire and assign. Staff to teach subject that are outside their field expertise and training more than 50% of mathematics teacher who did not do mathematics education or pure mathematics in college of education or university

(Kalejaiye.,1979). It was also observed as reflected by (Aswell et al 1977) that most mathematician during classes read out portion of the test book to the student like bible knowledge classes they further emphasized the need to raise the sti c awareness of science teacher through suitable language course to solve the problem facing the teaching of mathematics and science subject in general.
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The national policy on education (1981) revealed that it is apparent that without improving the quality of our teacher education, few of the objectives of universal primary education can be satisfactorily realized. The supply of well qualified teachers for secondary schools is far below the minimum required for running an efficient and adequate educational system. Since the number of unqualified teacher is high in our school the number of failure on the side of our student will still be very high because of the above reason The most important component in mathematic teaching is the teacher himself. So therefore the factor most well qualified both academically and professionally and most have a high sense of responsibility and duty. Ability to teach mathematics effectively depends on the preparation put into the lesson and how far the teacher is prepared to sacrifice his private time. Therefore, teaching should be reserved for men and women who are specially qualified for it, TEACHER COMPENSATION Despite the fact that the teacher been agitating for a special scale like their counterpart in medical field and other professional field the teacher in Delta State are still paid far below in medical field and this produce a non chalant attitude on the side of the teacher to the teaching profession. Research as shown
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that most teachers from Uvwie local government area also have their own private establishment thereby making them to be less active to their first profession of teaching. Resulting in less or poor output of the student result. It will be observed that even the percentage rise promised by the federal government to all civil servant is still under contention by some quarter apart from that the working conditions of teachers in Uvwie Local Government Area are considerably less attractive and also lack of motivation and this has finally dropped the morals of student to opt for teaching profession In 1999, out of more than 500,000 applicants for the university admission, less than 2% applied for the courses in Education worse still there were only 10000 applicant for places in the 67 colleges of education. There figures point to the lack of interest in a career in the teaching profession the low states and low salaries of Uvwie local government area teachers are part of the reason for low achievement in uvwie local government area schools SCHOOL EXPENDITURES Generally speaking the school expenditures in Uvwie Local Government Area per secondary school are deflated by a purchasing power parity price index even teacher of constant quality are seen with less value in Delta State. The pool of worker from which teacher must be drawn are NCE (National Certificate in

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Education) and University graduate since labour compensation is the bulk of education costs the proper deflator for schooling expenditure is not a general cost of living index, but a wage index that reflects among other things, the cost of recruiting compentent teachers lacking such an index, deflation by GDP per capital is the next best thing. TIME DEVOTED TO INSTRUCTION AND STUDY OF

MATHEMATICES Failure itself start in the class since most of the teacher are good in reading mathematics, this now generally bring about a poor intrest on the side of the student during reading time because they often complain ofn the fact that mathematics is too difficult to understand they tend to avoid mathmatices material for other subject. Emekwulu (1971) state that considerably concern has been expressed about the decline in the intrest in mathematics in earlier year of secondary schools as a matter of fact student has given it several name at some point in time some see it as their greatest enemy that must be avoided (Alibi 1982) agreed with Emekwulu about the altitude of student towards mathematics he stated that student see mathematics as a terror that they must totally avoid. ENGAGEMENT EFFORT PER UNIT OF SCHEDULED TIME

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Classroom observation studies reveal that Uvwie Local Government Area (UVWIE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA) student actively engaged in learning activities for only about half the time they are scheduled to be in the classroom. A study of some selected school in UVWIE LOCAL

GOVERNMENT AREAf student to reveal that instead of student to do their assignment rather they engaged their leisure time in other unacademic programmes on telecast like football matches, smoking away their quality time, and also playing of gamblings in uncompleted building. Just as important as the amount of time participating in a learning activities is the intensity of the student involvement in the process. According to Theordore Sizer (1984) he characterized student as All too often docile compliant and without initiative John Goodlad (1983) described a general picture of

considerable passing among students also the high school teacher by surveyed by Goodlad ranked lack of student interest as the most Important problem in education. NERD HARASSEMENT/FORMATIVE CLINCK Probably most important reason for the lack of student engagement in Uvwie Local Government Area is peer culture that is hostile to studiousness and public display of enthusiasm for the academic learning. most student in Uvwie Local

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Government Area has developed the following habit like avoid giving the teacher eye contact , do not do their home work, do not raise their hands in class to either answer question and they do takes passes notes to friends during class(this signal that you value friend more than the teacher) Observation from research, effect that 5% of all student are member of a high achieving crowd that defines itself mainly on the basis of academic excellence of all the crowds the brains were the last happy with who they are nearly half wished they were in a different crowd Laurence et al 1996, one amusing question is that this set of student who disrupt the class activities are not always sanctioned by their class mate and this may be attributed to fact that many teachers pamper them by often a time upgrading their score when it becomes obvious that they do not do well in class thereby making it difficult for the hardworking ones to get top grade Also peer pressure might diminish if student were evaluated relative to an outside standard, they would no longer has personal interest in getting teachers off-track or punishing each other to refrain from studying rather it will promote a healthy competition among them. Peer pressure demanding studiousness might diminish.

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THE STUDENT PREFERENCE FOR EASY SUBJECTS Most students in Uvwie Local Government Area preferred subject that have been fun and not requiring much work a good grade.and surprisingly most parent support their children/ward preference for easy subject. Even in wealthy communities, they often demand that their child switch to easier subject. PRESSURE ON THE TEACHER TO LOWER STANDARD When teachers try to set high standard they often get preaaure to go easy and this generally as brought about a very bad output. Bit some exceptional teachers are able through the force of their personalities to induce their student to undertake tough learning task. But for too many academic demands are compromised because the bulk of the class sees no need to accept them as reasonable and legitimate THE ABSENCE OF REWARD OF REWARDS FOR THE LEARNING FROM EMPLOYERS One reason student care more about credential than (paper qualification) learning is the absence of immediate rewards in the labour for learning. It is observed that worker with strong basic skills do not earn more than those with without basic skill

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The long delay before the benefit of academic achievement in high school start accuring, sends student the wrong signals. Basically teenagers know that college graduate should have good job and comfortable houses but unfortunately this is not always the case in UVWIE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA rather school dropout are the ones driving big cars and staying in mansions so it would be reasonable for youngster to conclude that while education is good it is not always a product of living above the average mark. This is further reflected when these youngster sees their elderly ones who have studied or lettered rolls the street without job placement because of the cause of who know who in UVWIE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA. so these student sees no other reason to work hard and come out in flying colours. The solution to this I believe is that when the clause of who know who is removed from recruitment process and acvailability of jobs for individual who has passed through the system. The young youngster may now begin to appreciate the full benefit or value of education

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SUMMARY As a result of the analyzed problem the research was able to find out that of a truth there is a problem performance by student in mathematics in Uvwie Local Government Area which include issues like varieties of performance from school to school, problem associated with teaching, mathematics teachers, qualification, instructional material used in teaching will be among the key factor that concern the study

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CONCLUSION From research finding, (it was discovered that there are cause of student poor performance in mathematics in UVWIE Local Government Area offering mathematics secondly it could also be observed that from data analyzed they were problem, solution and recommendation to these subject of student in mathematics in Uvwie Local Government Area

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RECOMMENDATION Upon the research findings and conclusion obtained from the study the following solution or recommendation were made or entailed y Government on their own should pay promptly and increase secondary school teachers enough money to attract talented people with deep knowledge of mathematics required prospective secondary school teachers to pass rigorous tests assessing their knowledge of their first teaching job y Government should adhere strictly to the curriculum based external examination system and tailored there students towards it y Teachers must be offered professional development opportunity to learn how to build on their teaching skills y School should be rewarded for improving student achievement y A system of identifying failing student that need to be developed and when a school is also identified, a team of turnaround expert should be sent to the school and school should be required to develop and implement a plan for improving achievement y There should be provision of adequate instructional material for teaching mathematics

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y Government should provide a conducive aenvironment for teaching and learning mathematics y There should be scholarship scheme as incentives for best mathematics student y There should be discipline in the school authority for teachers to be regular for school and y Parent should try as much as possible to provide the needed material for their children .

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REFERENCES Abdullahi.,1982 Science Education of the African Child; Economic Constraint on Science teaching CASME Journal Vol. 11 No 2 pp.11 16 Alibi., 1982 Problem of Teaching Mathematics in Nigerian in Daily Times June 9 Caswells et al., 1977 Lack of Professional Mathematics Teacher Mexico Frank publishing company Chike O., 1980; The Foundation of Science and Technology, Ibadan function publishing Company Lagos Nigeria Duriyi.,1980; Mathematices in secondary school;A teaching approach, London: London publisher. Egbule.,1983; Introduction to statistics, London: Allen and Unwin Ltd Emekwulu.,1971; Student attitude towards their education in Nigeria Journal of technical education Review October 9 vol.6 No7 pp20 31 Farrant .,1964; Teaching Aids not teacher aid but pupils aids for developing countries, unpublished seminar paper delivered at the university of Ife on 2 April

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Grable.,1974; the controversy about mathematics education in Nigeria. The west Africa journal of education vol.11 No.1pp13 Green T.L.,1965 The Teaching of Science Tropical Secondary School. London :Oxford university press Pp 125 126 Kalejaiye., 1977; The poor performance of student in mathematics, Ibadan: Evans Brothers publishing company ltd Ibadan Laurence Steinberg, Bradford Brown, and Sanford Dombusch Beyond the classroom (New York: Simon and Schuster.,1996 Pp 145 146. Maduabulum .,1984; Teaching mathematics in secondary school, Obosis Anachena Education Book. McDowel D.W. 1970; Science Teachers and Science Curriculum Reform in Nigeria Secondary School, West African Journal of Education, Vol. 14 No 2 Pp11 Odubina.,1988; An Appraisial of the leuristic and genetic approaches to the discovery method of teaching mathematics.Benin Journal of Education. Studies vol. 1 No.1 Pp.6. Peterson ., 1966; Important of Teaching Aids, Ibadan: Institute of Education, University College
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