Students’ performance on the Ghanaian junior high school mathematics national minimum standards in the Efutu Municipality

This study investigated Effutu Municipality Junior High School (JHS) 2 students’ performance on the National Minimum Standards (NMS) set by the 2012 JHS revised mathematics syllabus. It specifically sought to find out whether the JHS 2 students in the Municipality will attain the NMS set by the end of basic education. The population was JHS 2 students in the Central Region in the 2013/2014 academic year. Ten JHS were randomly selected in the Effutu Municipal to participate in the study. A total of 285 students (141 males and 144 females) responded to test items based on the NMS. The study employed survey as a strategy of enquiry using a test designed following rigorous standard-test design principles. The test comprised a 35 item multiple choice items taken in 120 minutes. For easy interpretation, the students obtaining a mean score below 55% were categorized as ‘performing below minimum standards’, those scoring between 55% and 65% were categorized as performing at ‘minimum competency’ and those scoring of 65 and above were categorized as performing at proficiency level. The study revealed that eight out of the nineteen content standards (i.e. 42%) were found to be difficult by the students. It was found that overall about 30% of the students achieved the proficiency mean score of at least 65% and only about 10% achieved below the minimum competency level, implying about half of the students are operating at minimum competency level. The results also revealed that in the Effutu Municipality, students in private JHS outperform their counterparts in the public JHS as the results indicated that the majority of private school students (77%) achieved proficiency as compared to only 28% from the public schools. Recommendations are made for improving the performance of the students, particularly in public schools, who are not reaching proficiency.