ABSTRACT

 The study appraised the availability, adequacy and utilization of human and material resources for the teaching and learning of further mathematics in senior secondary schools in Abia State. Six research questions were posed for the study and six null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled “availability, adequacy and utilization of human and material resources for teaching and learning of further mathematics in senior secondary schools in Abia State. The stability and internal consistency of the questionnaire were determined using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient with reliability index of 0.76 and 0.79 respectively. Instrument for data collection was face validated by 3 experts. Research question were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 8793 students and 1,520 teachers from 270 public schools in Abia state. The sample of the study was 400, comprising of 340 students and 60 teachers from the 52 secondary schools selected from 7 local government areas and 3 educational zones in Abia state. Multistage sampling technique was used to select sample size of the education zone, local government area, schools, teachers and students. Result revealed that many public schools in Abia state are not teaching and learning further mathematics due to lack of qualified and experienced teachers, no library, lack of material resources, no good environment for learning. Most libraries are not well equipped. No laboratory assistants, most qualified teachers due to lack of motivation and non-payment of salary are leaving the teaching field and joining ministries. Based on these findings, the researcher made the following recommendations: that the government should employ qualified and experienced teachers, stakeholders and school management should provide graph books, good further mathematics textbooks for both teachers and students. In addition, good library and laboratory should be put in place to help the students and encourage them to register and study further mathematics. In addition teachers with low qualification should upgrade their status.