Page 25 - Professorial Lecture - Prof Kasanda

some other factors that may be contributing to students’ low performance
in mathematics, including; “inadequacy of mathematics lecturers (at
university level), teaching methods, students’ attitudes and interests,
lecturers’ qualifications, inadequacy of textbooks, especially indigenous
authors, inadequacy of evaluation, …” among others. Even though this
study was carried out in Nigeria the same factors may be operating at our
own University of Namibia. Further, Ali notes that the students in his study
attributed their lack of interest in mathematics to poor performance in the
subject in previous years. Would our own students and learners say the
same thing? As mathematics teachers or lecturers we need to make our
teaching of mathematics more interesting and practical if the majority of
our students are to become enthusiastic about learning mathematics.
It could also be in the preparation of Mathematics teachers in our country,
the knowledge they enter the classroom with and their commitment to
teaching and making students learn and grasp the content is another
possible contributory factor. Often many parents and students see
teaching as the last resort and as such teacher preparation institutions
tend to get the majority of students who are not interested in teaching or
those who had failed to gain entry to their first choices where their
interest lies. This state of affairs does little to raise the status of the
teaching profession in the country. Further, since those who become
teachers are not interested in teaching per se, they do not put in as much
effort in teaching as they would if they were really interested in the
teaching profession. For some of them, they leave the teaching profession
as soon as they find something else.

According to Skemp (1976) teaching may be either relational or
mechanical. Johnes (2006) calls these kinds of learning as deep and
surface learning. In relational or deep teaching or learning relationships
are emphasized and students take an active part in the acquisition of the
knowledge. The learners or students are provided with the reason(s) of
doing something, while in mechanical or surface teaching and learning the

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