Establishing the Growth Rate of Mauritian Students’ Achievement in Mathematics for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination

As research must measure and precisely assess the effects of changes and advances in an area of endeavor, mathematics has played. It continues to play a key role in developing realms of science and technology. Academic performance is an important factor in determining an individual’s success or failure in mathematics. Mathematics is obligatory in Mauritius until students reach Grade 11, taking the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. However, in the case of Mauritius, the question of student success growth rate has not been properly explored. The aim of this research is to establish the rate of growth in student math performance for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. The Verhulst logistic model is adapted for this purpose for the period 2012 to 2019. According to the findings, the predicted growth rate of student achievement in Mathematics Syllabus A, Mathematics Syllabus D, and Additional Mathematics are respectively lowered by about 2.42 percent, 1.86 percent, and 7.01 percent per year.


Introduction
Mathematics has an impact on our daily lives. Outside of the classroom, mathematics in the form of reasoning and problem solving appear regularly. It is more prevalent in our daily lives than many people realize, and it enables us to thoroughly comprehend the world around us. Mathematics is crucial in making inventions a reality. Many mathematical theories and representations of real-world situations have aided scientists and engineers in overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. When you contemplate the educational and professional spheres, mathematics is everywhere.
Academic performance is a significant characteristic that determines an individual's success or failure in mathematics. Academic accomplishment is commonly defined as demonstrating information gained or abilities developed in a school topic (Bossaert, Doumen, and Buyse). Every educational program's goal is to guarantee that pupils attain a satisfactory outcome. This is frequently context-based and is measured by examination or continuous evaluation. However, there is no broad consensus about how it can be evaluated or which components are more important. (Yeung). Mathematics offers the underlying information and abilities for all other academic courses, including science, art, and economics. The mathematical accomplishments of secondary school students have an impact on their success in a higher education institutions and their career opportunities. Mathematics achievement in secondary school correlates with educational attainment, initial earnings, and revenue growth (Murnane, Willet and Levy).
A strong mathematical foundation allows pupils to acquire nuanced viewpoints and opens them to additional job opportunities. Educators and government officials have consistently underlined the significance of mathematics study (Wilkins and Ma). Teachers and parents will be unable to assist their pupils in making significant academic progress until they know the elements that impact their kids' mathematics success and improvement (Ma and Klinger). However, previously discovered that the accomplishment of all levels of pupils in mathematics has slowed over time (Ahiakwo). A mixed approach was used to investigate the contextualized factors affecting secondary school student's academic performance in Mauritius. (Atchia and Chinapah). The authors established the influence of the factors on student accomplishment while taking learners' academic growth into account. According to the model, school leadership has the most positive link with student accomplishment, followed by student factors, tuition instructor, school teacher, and socioeconomic status.
Mathematics is compulsory in Mauritius until Grade 11, where pupils sit for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. Students can select between two syllabuses, widely known as Mathematics Syllabus A and Mathematics Syllabus D. Furthermore, based on their mathematics proficiency in Grade 9; some students choose the topic Additional Mathematics. The pass percentage in the Mathematics Syllabus D subject has dropped from 79.03 percent in 2015 to 74.27 percent in 2019. The typical assessment timetable has been modified due to the COVID-19 epidemic, and the 2020 cohort of students is presently being assessed.
With so many creative teaching methodologies, one concerns if there will be a proportional increase in mathematical achievement. However, the topic of student achievement growth rate has not been thoroughly investigated in the instance of Mauritius. The aim of this research is to determine the rate of increase in academic achievement in Mathematics and Additional Mathematics for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. This research will help instructors, school administrators, and education officials sustain the subject's achievement progress.

Method
The quantitative analysis methodology was used since the aim of this paper was to measure the level of growth of student achievement in Mathematics and Additional Mathematics in the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. Secondary data was gathered from the Mauritius Examination Syndicate's website (MES). From 2012 to 2019, the statistics comprised the number of students examined and passed the subjects Mathematics (Syllabi A & D) and Additional Mathematics.
Instead of an exponential growth model, a logistic growth model (Tsoularis) is utilized to determine the growth rate of students' achievement (Obasi and Ugo). The reason for this is because the exponential model is impractical due to environmental constraints on population expansion. Setting N(t) as the number of passed students at time t, r as the intrinsic growth or decay rate of student's achievement, and K as the carrying capacity of the number of examined students, then the Verhulst logistic equation is given by If N0 is the number of students passed at time t=0, then the Verhulst logistic equation has the following solution.
Making r the subject of the equation above, we obtain the rate of student achievement growth provided by

Findings
The secondary data gathered from the Mauritius Examination Syndicate's website are summarized in Table 1. We observe that more students opt for syllabus D as compared to Syllabus A. Further, the pass percentage in the Mathematics Syllabus A subject has dropped from 48 percent in 2012 to 34 percent in 2019. A comparable observation may be made for Mathematics Syllabus D. However, there is a little increase in Additional Mathematics, from 70% in 2012 to 72% in 2019. Similar observations hold gender-wise.
To compute the growth rate for the student's achievement, let t=0, 1, 2, …, seven correspond to the years 2012, 2013, 2014, …, 2019, respectively. Firstly, consider the subject Mathematics Syllabus A. Using N0=1514, K=5407, the maximum number of examined over the considered period, and N7=1336, we have r= -0.0242. This means that the expected growth rate of student achievement in Mathematics Syllabus A is reduced by roughly 2.42 percent per year.
Similarly, we can find r= -0.0186 and r= -0.0701 for the subjects Mathematics Syllabus D and Additional Mathematics, respectively. This implies that the expected growth rate of student achievement in Mathematics Syllabus D and Additional Mathematics are respectively reduced by roughly 1.86 percent and 7.01 percent per year.

Conclusion
Mathematics is essential in everyday life and has a wide range of applications. The logistic growth model was used to analyse the growth rate of students' success in the mathematics subject for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. According to the model, the growth rate for all of the disciplines evaluated was negative from 2012 to 2019. The findings indicate that the future expansion of mathematical achievement seems to be of concern.

Table 1: Examined and Passed Data for the Cambridge SC Examination
Effective mathematics teaching and learning at all stages of schooling should be assured by all parties involved to achieve a positive growth rate in the subject. The research results educate regulators, educators, and other stakeholders about the thresholds that should be prioritized when implementing relevant initiatives. As future work, the investigation into factors responsible for the negative growth will be studied.