Abstract:

The main purpose of the study was to compare levels of mathematics teachers’ understanding and implementation of the CBA in grammar and technical secondary schools in the North West Region of Cameroon. The study adopted a survey research design. Using the Taro Yamane’s method, a sample of 153 mathematics teachers (60 from technical secondary schools and 93 from grammar secondary schools) was selected from a population of 248 mathematics teachers in the North West Region using the simple random sampling technique. Data was collected using a 25-itemised self-designed questionnaire. Cronbach alpha reliability indices for sections B and C of the questionnaire were found to be 0.82 and 0.85 respectively. Mean was used to answer the research questions and t-test to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that mathematics teachers in both grammar and technical secondary schools understand the Competency Based Approach to teaching mathematics only to a low extent. Furthermore, the extent to which mathematics teachers in grammar schools implement the CBA, though low, is significantly better than that of technical school mathematics teachers. It was therefore recommended among other things that many more training seminars on CBA related issues in mathematics should be organized by the Teachers’ Resource Center (TRC) in the North West Region, and that Inspectors of mathematics should carryout regular visits to monitor the implementation of the CBA in mathematics classrooms.