He said this lack of qualified mathematics teachers, coupled with the poor attitude of some students were responsible for their mass failure of the subject in public examination.
Onah made this known on Wednesday in Abuja at the event to commemorate International Day of Mathematics.
He said he was however surprised at the decline of performance of students in mathematics as shown by the recent result release by the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which indicated that only 17 percent of candidates passed in Mathematics and English.
He this abysmal failure was in spite of the efforts being made by the Federal government and the agency to simplify the study of mathematics in schools.
He said NMC has developed approaches to check the perennial decline in the performance of candidates in the subject.
Prof. Onah noted that the centre has resolved to go back to the basics in order to address the poor performance of students in mathematics and develop students interest and talents in mathematics in the country.
He said: “It was surprising in the sense that we expected a good result because of the effort of the Minister for education in promoting the learning and teaching of mathematics in our school.
“The centre has developed a number of research materials and teaching aids to improve from the lowest level to the highest level. The centre has also developed all kinds of approaches to make mathematics interesting and to also simply the teaching and learning of mathematics.
“We have decided to go back to the drawing board after we got the information of the mass failure. There is still much more for every stakeholder in the education sector to go back to the drawing board and come up with how best developed the learning of mathematics.
The NMC chief executive also lamented that cooperation of some state government has not been sufficient in the past few years.
“The challenge we have at the centre is that we need to partner with the state governor, state ministry of education; that has not been sufficient enough.
In his remarks, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu assured that the federal government will continue to play adequate attention to mathematics education at all levels of Nigeria’s education system.
“Apart from the formal curriculum, my ministry will intensify efforts through the ministerial strategic plan to develops students interest and talents in mathematics.
The Minister said the occasion provides a golden opportunity to sensitize the populace on the importance of mathematics.
” I believe fervently that today’s celebration provides à veritable platform for our teeming youths to proceed confidently beyond first degrees especially in the science and technology related field to engage in more challenging research duties.
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