Mastery of Secondary School Mathematics Contents by NCE Mathematics Teachers in North Central Nigeria

The study investigated the mastery of secondary school mathematics curriculum by NCE mathematics teachers in North Central Nigeria.The study was guided by four research questions and one hypothesis. The instrument used for the study was a test on secondary school mathematics curriculum(TESSMAC). TESSMAC is a 60-item multiple choice objective tests constructed by the researcher in line with the curriculum and guided by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) standards. It was face validated by an experienced secondary school mathematics teacher and its content validity was assured using test blueprint covering all the four areas of secondary school mathematics. Its reliability was calculated to be 0.82 using the Po, Pc and K statistics. TESSMAC was administered on a purposive sample of 120 NCE mathematics teachers from 20 randomly sampled secondary schools in Benue and Kogi States in North Central Nigeria. The data collected was analysed using frequency tables, percentages and the z-test. Among other findings, only 25% of the NCE mathematics teachers have mastered the curriculum. Based on these, some recommendations were made among which is that programmed instruction should be introduced in Nigerian schools.