As students in Nova Scotia continue to score poorly on provincial math exams, education officials want to know how many public school instructors are teaching subjects outside their areas of expertise.

At a legislature committee meeting Tuesday, deputy education minister Dennis Cochrane suggested that low test scores might be linked to the competence of some teachers.

"People make the assumption [that] because they can teach in French, they can teach math in French," Cochrane told the committee.

"That's making the same assumption [that] because I can teach in English, I can teach math in English. And that would not be a good assumption."

Since the provincial exam was reintroduced after 30 years in 2004, Grade 12 students in Nova Scotia have regularly scored poorly.

The first year, more than 60 per cent of general level math students failed the exam, which accounts for 30 per cent of their final mark.

For tests written in January and June of 2005, about 30 per cent failed. The average grade was 41.

Cochrane's concern is shared by Carole Olsen, superintendent of the Halifax Regional School Board.

"When you look at the qualifications of teachers at the elementary level, many of them haven't had mathematics since they were in high school," Olsen said.

The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, Mary-Lou Donnelly, defends her members.

"We at the NSTU are confident that teachers are competent in the areas in which they are teaching," said Donnelly.

"Teachers are life-long learners and they do indeed engage in that informal learning that will absolutely bring them up to speed in teaching that subject."

Donnelly said as far as she's concerned, the poor test results have more to do with poor funding than anything else.