Correlational trends in performance of mathematics students -- matching the Special Science Programme on the Nigerian Certificate of Education

The Special Science Programme was introduced into the Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, Nigeria, on account of the finding that students desiring to pursue Mathematics as an area of speciality in addition to associated physical or social science disciplines, in the Nigerian Certificate of Education programme, lacked one of the requisite entry qualifications in most cases -- that is a credit level pass in Mathematics in the West African School Certificate (WASC) examinations. It thus acquired the status of a remedial programme. Having lasted some years, it is the desire of the authors to appraise to what extent the objective for establishing the programme can be said to have been achieved. We have endeavoured to establish whether or not performance of students in the Special Science Programme (SSP) in mathematics reflected their performances in the Nigerian Certificates of Education (NCE) programme. Results of the students in the two programmes were correlated, applying the appropriate statistical tools. The recommendations reflected the findings as evident from the results of our hypothesis.