The South African TIMSS 2019 Grade 5 results

We are living through a daunting yet fascinating period in which the global economy increasingly challenges the accepted dichotomies between home-life and work-life, between employment and unemployment, paid work and unpaid work. This calls for serious analysis of how knowledge is generated, both formally and informally, in workplaces as diverse as the factory, the field, or the street. It raises questions about what forms of learning and training are involved; how they articulate with one another and what practical and theoretical implications this has for our societies.

The Low Achievement Trap is an empirical study of student mathematics learning in Grade 6 classrooms that is unique in its focus on two school systems shaped by different political histories on either side of the Botswana-South Africa border. The study provides a detailed examination of the capacity of teachers - how they teach, how much they teach, and what they teach. Because of this wealth of detail, The Low Achievement Trap gives us much greater insight than previous research into why students seem to be making larger gains in the classrooms of South Eastern Botswana than in those of North West Province, South Africa. Rather than identifying a single major factor to explain this difference, the study finds that a composite of inter-related variables revolving around teachers mathematics knowledge and their capacity to teach mathematics are crucial to improving education in both regions. The message is a hopeful one: good teachers can make a difference in student learning.

Conflicts in schools over race, fees or language frequently make headlines in South Africa. Such conflicts reflect the multifaceted issue of learner diversity, encompassing racial, class, gender, religious, linguistic, physical and other differences. The need to handle such differences in equitable ways poses new challenges for teachers and teacher education. How are teacher education institutions preparing students for teaching in schools that are different from the ones they experienced as learners? What kinds of skills are they providing to enable teachers to deal with diversity and difference amongst learners?

This monograph, based on an empirical study of the public-private partnerships that existed between 2002 and early 2003, offers the first compelling account of a hitherto under-researched phenomenon in higher education provision in South Africa.