SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND MATHEMATICS TEACHERS PERCEPTION OF THE ROLES SECONDARY SCHOOLS SHOULD PLAY TO ENHANCE STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS.

The study adopted the descriptive survey design to investigate Secondary students’ and Mathematics teachers’ perception of the roles secondary schools should play to enhance students’ achievement in mathematics. The Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 159 secondary school students and 43 mathematic teachers from 14 States and Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. The instrument used for collecting data was the researchers’ developed structured questionnaire of the Likert type on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the roles the school should play to enhance students’ achievement in mathematics at the Junior and Senior Secondary school levels in Nigeria. The instrument was validated and the reliability index of 0.79 was obtained. Five (5) research questions and Three (3) hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The research questions were answered using percentages and the hypotheses were tested using independent t-test statistics. The results of the study indicated that provision of competent teachers, learning materials, well equipped library, regular counseling of students on the importance and how to study mathematics, use of activity based learning strategies, motivation of students and teachers, good class size, low workload of mathematics teachers, and other similar roles were agreed by students and mathematics teachers as the roles the school should play to enhance students’ achievement in mathematics. The study recommended that schools should effectively carry out the roles identified in the study to enhance the achievement of students’ in mathematics.