[February 17, 2010] Mathematics Clinic for Lagos Students Tweet Lagos, Feb 17, 2010 (Daily Champion/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- To complement the Lagos State Government efforts towards the provision of all round education to students in the state, a non governmental organization (NGO), Mclilyville Consulting Limited has been going round the state public schools to train students in mathematics. Last Wednesday was the turn of students from Education District four of the state to have their mathematic trainings, which took place at the Stadium High School, surulere.The training which tagged mathematics clinic witnessed over two thousands students from various public schools in the district in attendance. During the mathematics clinic, most of the students bared their minds on why they were not good in mathematics, and expressed disguise about the poor manner their mathematics teachers handle mathematics' in the state public schools. Some of the teachers who were present at the clinic proffered solutions on how students could over the phobia associated with mathematics, saying that students must pay attention to their teachers and submit their assignments on time. Immediately, after the mathematics s clinic by the organization, students were called upon to say why they are poor in mathematics, and a lot of them attributed their poor performance to the ways their teachers handle the subject. Most of the students, who attended the clinic, were of senior schools. They agreed that their mathematic teachers, especially during their junior classes did not show commitment to teaching of mathematics. They said that, some of them will only come to class rooms and ask the students to copy notes without explaining to them the topic. They also said that most of teacher that taught them in junior classes did have any training in mathematics, instead, some of them just come into schools and started teaching mathematic because there were no teacher to handle the subject. "A time, those teachers that teach mathematics in our schools are not trained, they are people who teach Biology and Chemistry and due to there were no trained teachers in that subject, they were called upon to teach the subject and at the end they confuse us the more," they stated. They also said that some of the teachers were very harsh, abusive and strict to them and do not carry them along when teaching "they are only interested in coming to class and make sure they attended class without minding, if student understand them or not." The students also said that " some of the teachers when you asked them any question instead of answering you they will begin to insult your parent .A time they will tell us to go to our parents to teach us mathematics . With this, some of us have lost interested in the subjects." One of the students said "my teacher gave me the impression that mathematic is difficult and hard subject that I have to study from morning to night, if I want to pass it. I said, is this what I will do and we have the impression that math makes one to be mad" he said. Some of the students believe that their teachers teach them as if they were in higher schools, saying that some of them were not coming down to their level to create the interest to them. "Our mathematics teachers will just come in and start teaching us, as if we are her mate. She does not create the interest in us. She will come into the class room and started teaching without minding if we understand her," he said Another student believed that their mathematics teacher make the subject boring the way he was teaching them , saying that, whenever he comes into classroom, students will begin to complain and become uncomfortable because he does not carry them along in his teaching. Another student believed that some of their mathematics teachers do not have the skills to explain to the students to understand mathematics better and with that they did not create interest in them. However, some of the students attributed their poor performance of mathematics to lack of patient and concentration among students during mathematics class because most of the students are of the opinion that math is not easy to understand. Some even believed that it is magic. They also believed that some of the students in class, because they do not like math make sure they distract every other student who is interested, pleading with the state government to put in place a policy that will make every student to be serious whenever they are in a class room. They said "We students, we do not have time for our mathematics, we preferred Playing around and making noise during our mathematics classes .Some of us make noise while lesion are going on." All the students were in unionism that the environment in which mathematic classes is taken are not conducive for proper learning of the subject and appealed to the state government to provide all the needed facilities to enable students to concentrate and become interested in mathematics. The chief executive office of Mclillyville Mr. Agarana Michael, said the organization embarked on the mathematics clinic as part of its efforts to complement the Lagos state government drive to give the best education to pupils and students irrespective of their family backgrounds in the state. He said, Mclilyville consulting limited discovering the phobia students have for mathematics and decided to embark on the math clinic, so as to demystify it and create the interest of mathematics into the student minds. He said the mathematic clinic was designed to assist the weak students in mathematic to develop and brace up for it because it key to all inventions and with out mathematics, the nation drive to becoming one of the best economies in the 20, 2020 will be an illusion. According to him, after the clinic those who had improved will join those that are good in mathematics to compete for honour to be organized by the firm, saying that during the competition which comes up in June both students in private and public would be competing for positions. Also some of the teachers who attended the clinic advised the students to develop interest in the mathematic as well as submit their assignments to their teachers in time to know the extent to which they are progressing in mathematic. They debunked the impression that mathematic is difficult as being held by many quarters, but said math only requires commitment and dedication to come up. They called on students to put teachers on test by challenging them all the times, whenever they failed to do the right in the course of their teaching them, saying that it was their right to come up to any teacher and ask for explanation of any thing they did not understand. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]