By Olimatou Coker
Basic and Secondary Education Minister Habibatou Drammeh has revealed that her ministry has identified the shortage of qualified mathematics teachers as one of the factors contributing to the continued low performance of Gambian students in mathematics in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASCCE).
This year, out of 20,000 candidates, only 1,556 obtained credits in at least five subjects including English language and mathematics.
But according to Minister Drammeh, at a press conference on Friday, though mathematics and English language continues to record low credit passes, this year’s performance has shown some improvement compared to the previous year.
The minister further commented that the country faces a particular challenge in mathematics because few Gambians pursue mathematics-related careers at tertiary and higher education levels, resulting in a limited pool of mathematics teachers.
“The teacher populations are low,” she said, noting that the number of people who take mathematics as a career in tertiary and higher education remains limited.
According to her, the shortage is one of the reasons her ministry is exploring more innovative approaches to teaching mathematics in schools as part of its broader education reforms aimed at strengthening foundational literacy and numeracy and improving learning outcomes across the country.
The minister added that government is working to expose students to numeracy in ways that can help them better understand and engage with mathematics.
“We are also strengthening foundational learning, particularly in the early grades, with a focus on ensuring that children develop strong literacy and numeracy skills before progressing to higher levels of education,” she added.
She explained that new foundational learning assessments are being introduced to help the education sector identify weaknesses in reading, fluency and mathematics at an early stage. She said this initiative is expected to expand to all public Early Childhood Centres and Lower Basic schools across the country, from this September.
According to her, government is also supporting Lower Basic teachers through structured lesson plans, modern phonics guides and regular classroom coaching.
The minister said the results demonstrate that the country has teachers and schools capable of producing strong outcomes, pointing to schools whose students performed particularly well in mathematics and English.
“The ministry therefore believes that stronger teaching practices, greater commitment from teachers and increased support for students can help improve national performance.”
She also announced that the ministry intends to closely monitor school performance and take action against institutions that consistently fail to produce acceptable results.