Why Arts and Humanities Students Still Need Mathematics
By Kabiru Danladi Lawanti
I remember my first encounter with numbers. It was interesting and because in Junior Secondary School, our mathematics teacher in JSS Akko made the subject come alive. He was patient, imaginative, and deeply human. He showed us that mathematics was not just about numbers, but it was about patterns, relationships, and reasoning. But by the time we moved to Senior Secondary School, the story changed. With poor teaching and growing fear, mathematics became a nightmare. We ran from the subject, we skipped classes and hated the teacher by implication hated the subject.
That memory came back yesterday when the Federal Government announced that Mathematics will no longer be a compulsory subject for students in the arts and humanities seeking admission into Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. Many students will rejoice. But I am worried, because this decision quietly erodes something far more precious than numbers – our ability to think.
Mathematics is not about finding x or y. It is about how to think. It is the discipline of logic, the grammar of reasoning, and the architecture of problem-solving. When we remove it from the educational foundation of the arts and humanities, we are not making life easier for students, but simply making their minds weaker.
The truth is that every discipline, whether art or science, stands on mathematical thinking. The artist balancing symmetry in a painting, the poet weaving rhythm into verse, the musician composing harmony, the lawyer building logical arguments, the historian discerning patterns of cause and effect, all of them are using mathematics in thought, if not in symbol. The ability to reason systematically, to detect patterns, to separate emotion from evidence is mathematics at work.
Mathematics, rightly taught, is not a wall but a window. It teaches the mind to move from intuition to proof, from feeling to structure. It disciplines creativity without killing it. A well-trained artist who understands proportion, sequence, and logic creates more compelling art. A philosopher who reasons like a mathematician writes clearer arguments. A lawyer who grasps logical inference argues with sharper precision, a journalist who thinks sharply writes accurate reports with facts. The humanities thrive when they are grounded in the logic mathematics provides.
Unfortunately, our education system has long misunderstood this truth. Added to this is our inability to get our education policies right. Conflicting policies largely shaped by where policymakers travel to. Some schooled in the UK, some in the US, and others from other countries in Europe and Asia or even Latin America. These individuals come back to Nigeria and start preaching “international best practice”, “global standards”, and other jargons that don’t understand our culture, the philosophy and contexts that informed our educational policies. Unfortunately, over the years, due poor teaching methods, unqualified teachers, mathematics was turned into a ritual of formulas and fear. We reward memorisation, not reasoning; repetition, not reflection. Examinations have made mathematics a test of speed rather than a training of thought. In the process, we have produced generations who see mathematics as punishment rather than possibility.
Now, instead of fixing how we teach mathematics, we are simply abandoning it. This is like treating a headache by cutting off the head. The problem was never that arts and humanities students don’t need mathematics; it is that they were never shown why they need it.
To remove mathematics from the core requirement of the arts and humanities is to divide knowledge itself. It reinforces the false dichotomy between “those who think” and “those who feel.” But human progress depends on the marriage of both. The great thinkers of history — from Leonardo da Vinci to Chinua Achebe — combined precision with imagination, structure with story. That synthesis is what education should aim for.
Mathematical reasoning builds habits of mind that are moral as well as intellectual. It rewards honesty with facts, patience with process, and humility before evidence. These are not just academic virtues; they are civic virtues. A society that cannot reason clearly cannot govern wisely. The corruption, impulsive policymaking, and shallow debate that dominate our public life are symptoms of a deeper deficit — the inability to think in structured, evidence-based ways.
If Nigeria must build a future founded on innovation and knowledge, it cannot do so by excusing half its students from the discipline of reasoning. The goal should not be to make mathematics optional but to make it meaningful. Teach mathematics not as punishment, but as perspective. Teach it as a way to organise thought, to interpret information, to connect ideas.
For the arts and humanities, mathematical literacy sharpens creativity and strengthens argument. It helps writers structure stories, sociologists interpret data, journalists understand accuracy and facts, philosophers analyse premises, and lawyers test logic. In a digital age where information is abundant but reasoning is scarce, mathematical thinking is the new literacy.
Our policy should therefore not remove mathematics from the humanities, but reform how we teach it — with imagination, relevance, and purpose. Let students of literature see how logic structures a story. Let students of history use numbers to interpret trends. Let philosophy students use equations to test consistency. When taught this way, mathematics becomes not a burden but a bridge — connecting logic with creativity, science with art, precision with beauty.
The removal of mathematics as a compulsory subject may appear like a relief, but it is, in truth, a retreat from rigour. No nation can grow by producing graduates who can feel deeply but think shallowly. The future belongs to minds that can connect art and analysis, reason and rhythm.
Teach mathematics, yes — but more importantly, teach students to think mathematically – to question, to prove, to structure, and to create. Because the nation that learns to think clearly, in art and in science will one day learn to lead wisely.