CORAL SPRING, Trelawny — Well-known maths guru Professor Andrew Hunte is calling for action to improve mathematics passes above the 30 per cent now achieved, on average, by secondary students in the Caribbean.

“A lot of the islands are experiencing around that percentage — within the 30s, some under 50. But it’s the general consensus… we need to do something to ensure that the mathematics performance improves. It starts with numeracy skills, not just from secondary,” said Hunte, who is head of School of Humanities and Education at The University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda.

Hunte was the speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday, after delivering the keynote address at the Jamaica Teachers’ Association Education Conference 2025, held at Ocean Coral Spring in Trelawny under the theme: ‘Innovation in Education Technology: The Imperative of Change’.

He believes the region has the capability to make the changes needed.

“I would say we do have the skill set here, and we have to make the teaching profession attractive where we can get the best of persons to go into… teaching in their countries,” added Hunte.

He thinks solutions include employing competent maths teachers and starting from the early childhood level.

“We need to really invest in getting excellent maths teachers. We have to figure out a way to get persons who are passionate about maths to be maths teachers — so that will kind of change how students are taught — and then we have to work collectively in the Caribbean to do this,” said Hunte.

He also said that technology can enhance mathematics education by enabling access to and collaboration with individuals across different Caribbean islands.

“They can work with a teacher in another island and pull together lesson ideas and plans. We need to find a place where we could have a repository of excellent new strategies for teaching,” he said.

The academic emphasised that numeracy skills impact every aspect of life.

“You must know how to count. We use maths every day. Maths is used to tell time, to count your money, it is so useful. Most of the time persons have bad experiences with their maths teachers where they say, ‘I have a block [against] doing mathematics,’ and they kind of put it aside. But we have to realise that it’s something you need; it’s useful. It’s not just to make your life difficult in school,” Hunte stressed.

He appealed to teachers to embrace technology in the classroom.

“You control the narrative in the way artificial intelligence is incorporated in your teaching practices, and then we have to use things like prompt engineering, which the Minister [of Education Dr Dana Morris Dixon] spoke about. Teaching students how to use that [in that] way, they can master… AI… It can be done,” he said.