Recent studies indicate that mathematics performance by high school students in the Iraq have
declined considerably. There are many reasons that have been advanced for this phenomenon,
chief among them, the political turmoil the country has gone through in the recent past. This paper
endeavoured to find out specific reasons that teachers perceive to be causing such decline in
performance. Data was collected from teachers in 8 major cities of Iraq through an online
questionnaire. The results show that mathematics curriculum, lack of proper grounding in the
foundation years, lack of concentration among students during lesson time and overcrowding in
the classroom contribute to demotivation of students in mathematics leading to poor performance
