Pupil s’ performance on the primary school mathematics national minimum standards in the Efutu municipality

Abstract

The study sought to investigate primary school pupils’ performance on the national minimum standard assessment test. A survey design was used to solicit pupils’ responses on the national minimum standard assessment test. The population of the study comprised all primary six pupils in the Efutu municipality in the central region of Ghana. A stratified sampling technique was used to select 300 pupils (159 boys, 141girls) who responded to test items on the national minimum objectives enshrined in the primary school mathematics syllabus. The findings revealed that pupils’ general performance on the national minimum standards assessment test was good. However, the study revealed that seven (43%) out of the sixteen standards were found to be difficult by pupils. The findings also revealed that boys performed better than girls, private schools performed better than public schools and urban schools performed better than rural schools. The results were further analyzed using independent samples t-test and chi-square relational test with the level of significance fixed at 0.05. The findings of the independent samples t-test revealed that the gender of pupils have no influence on their achievement of the National Minimum Standards assessment test. However, there were significant differences in the performance of pupils with respect to the type of school and school location. The findings on the chi-square relational test on the proportion of pupils reaching the national education assessment benchmarks with respect to the type of school revealed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores attained by private and public schools (2 = 13.332, df = 2, p > 0.01). It was also revealed that more than half (52%) of pupils from the urban schools have reached proficiency as compared to rural schools (29%), with a significant difference (2 = 21.609, df = 2, p > 0.00).