Education Ministry Stages Mathematics Expo March 10

The fourth staging of the Ministry of Education’s Mathematics exposition is scheduled to take place on Thursday, March 10.

Addressing a JIS ‘Think Tank’, today (March 2), National Mathematics Coordinator, Dr. Tamika Benjamin, said thousands of primary, secondary and tertiary level students from across the island will gather on the grounds of the Old Library at the University of West Indies (UWI), for the event, which is scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m.

The exposition forms part of a series of activities that will be undertaken by the Ministry to observe Math Week from March 6 to 11, under the theme: ‘Math Counts’.

The events will begin on Sunday, March 6, with a service at the Webster Memorial United Church, 53 Half-Way-Tree Road, starting at 9:45 a.m.

Other activities include a forum targeting selected principals and teachers.  This event will be sponsored by Book Merchant Limited, and will have one of the leading presenters in Scholastic International from Singapore participating.

On March 8, the annual Math Teacher award ceremony will take place, and according to Dr. Benjamin this is the third award under the initiative.  This event is sponsored by JN Foundation.

There will be a breakfast conversation with some members of the private sector on Wednesday, March 9, hosted by the Ministry.

“Members of the private sector will join the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Maurice Smith and other senior officials from the Ministry Education, to look at opportunities for the private sector to partner with the Ministry to continue to advance the programme to improve Math education,” Dr. Benjamin said.

Math Week will culminate on Friday, March 11 with the Ministry of Education Administrative Regions hosting individual activities.

Dr. Benjamin explained that under the National Mathematics Programme, the Ministry has established two main objectives – to improve teacher and teaching quality at the primary, secondary and the tertiary levels; and to improve attitudes to the teaching and learning of Math, with particular focus on increasing the awareness of the population to the relevance and importance of Math.

National Math Week was first celebrated in 2013 as part of Ministry’s efforts to improve students’ performance in mathematics.