Madumere Rejoice Ngozi has emerged winner in the 2019 The Ultimate Mathematics Ambassador (TUMA) competition, Ota, Ogun State.
Ten-year-old Ngozi, a pupil of Giant Stride Nursery and Primary School, Ifo, competed with over 1,200 others from 408 schools in Ogun State and other neighbouring states.
With an impressive score of 93 percent, Madumere Rejoice Ngozi beat nine-year-old Enwere Kingsley Ikenna of Cuddly Kids School and 10-year-old Oyindamola Olawale Hann of Vickstell International School, Ikorodu who both emerged first and second runners up respectively.
Madumere Rejoice Ngozi receives a ₦500,000 cash and a plaque. Her teacher Mr. Moses Issa, receives ₦150,000 and a plaque, while her school was given a laptop, printer, textbooks and a plaque.
Kingsley receives ₦300,000 and a plaque. His teacher Kehinde Mukadaz was also presented with ₦100,000 and a plaque; while the school was given a laptop, textbooks and a plaque. Third place Olawale receives ₦200,000 and a plaque, her teacher Mr. Edeh Anayo Samuel got ₦75,000 and a plaque while her school got a printer, textbooks and a plaque.
Others who emerged fourth to 10th positions were presented with ₦50,000 cash prize and ₦25,000 for their teachers. Contestants between 11th to 15th positions went home with prizes.
The Ambassadors Schools, organiser of the event, said TUMA was birthed to address children’s phobia for mathematics.
According to the chairman of Ambassadors Schools, Ota Samson Yomi Osewa:
“We know that many children today have phobia for mathematics.
This school has excelled in mathematics competitions especially national competition. We are therefore grateful that these organisers have sown into our lives. We then decided that for our social responsibility, we should run mathematics competition in primary school to prepare pupils ahead of their secondary education. This, we believe, will remove the phobia of mathematics.
We give prizes to as many as the top 50 that participated in the competition to encourage them. Anybody who does not get a prize will not want to come again; that is why we decided that let everyone get something modest for their effort including their teachers. It will also encourage pupils to study harder in mathematics.”
Mr. Osewa recalled that at TUMA’s maiden edition, the highest marks scored was 63. Nonetheless, he is happy that it skyrocketed to 93 percent this year, with more schools participating.
Odebunmi Ezekiel, a professor of Chemistry and a guest speaker at the event said:
“The major reason why performance in mathematics has gone down is phobia. This can be caused by learning environment, which doesn’t encourage the teaching and learning of mathematics.
The teacher factor is another reason. Some of the mathematics teachers are themselves not students of mathematics; they are just doing it without loving the subject. Some of them who know it don’t know how to teach it in a way that students will understand.
The last one is the fact that many of the textbooks we have in the market are not reader-friendly at all because of the way they present the concept and the type of questions they ask the students.”
