SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

INTRODUCTION

Science and technology is the bedrock of any developing nation. Nigeria as a developing nation with a teeming population of unemployed school leavers who needs better mechanized agricultural system. Self employed technologists and technologically developed intellectuals to help in the nation's development.

The solution to there quest is to embrace science education. Science education bridges the gap between the knowledge of nature and that of the learner. Everyone needs well-constructed bridges, comfortable accomodation, modes of entertainment good roads, health facilities are developed from concepts of mathematics and allied sciences. In nigeria today, there has been a decrease in the number of students passing mathematics in secondary schools and in teachers handling the subjects.

It becomes imperative to expose pupils, early in life to the applications of mathematical concepts in schools for self reliance. The importance of mathematics as a bedrock for technological development cannot be over-emphasized since no nation can raise her technology higher than the citizens' level in Mathematics. For governments to catch up with demands for scientific advancement, she has been promoting the teaching and learning of mathematics through the following ways:

i. Investing adequate sum of money to promote mathematics teaching at all levels of education.

ii. Supplying printed materials in the form of textbooks mathematics and othe sciences.

iii. Sponsoring teachers willing to acquire further training in mathematics.

iv. Providing schools with adequate facilities for mathematics.

At this levels, it becomes reasonable to investigate why students in our secondary schools do not perform well in mathematics in their junior and senior school certificate examination. A research work by CHUKWUA (1986) revealed that many variables have contributed to the poor performance of students in mathematics in nigerian secondary school and this will have adverse implications for the technological development of nigeria as a nation.