South African school pupils’ maths and science ability has improved at Grade 9 level, albeit at a slower pace, while primary school achievement remains poor compared to other countries, a global survey has revealed.
The 2019 South African component of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science study (TIMSS) has expressed concern at the rate of improvements in mathematics and science for Grade 9 learners.
“While the improvement in educational achievement is recognised, the concern is that the rate of improvement is decreasing. The improvement rate for mathematics and science achievement for the 2003 to 2011 period was 7.4 points and 7.1 points per year respectively (67 points for mathematics and 64 points for science over this period).
“However, for the 2011 to 2019 period these figures fall to 4.6 points and 4.8 points per year (an improvement of 37 points for mathematics and 38 points for science over this period),” the study revealed.
“The South African TIMSS 2019 Mathematics and Science achievement, at the secondary level, continues to increase, achievement gaps decreased slightly but are still significant, but the pace of achievement improvement must increase to meet the country’s social and economic challenges” says Dr Vijay Reddy, Principal Investigator of TIMSS 2019 and Distinguished Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council.
The Human Sciences Research Council has released the results of South African participation in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2019, in the report TIMSS 2019: Highlights of South African Grade 9 Results in Mathematics and Science authored by Vijay Reddy, Lolita Winnaar, Andrea Juan, Fabian Arends, Jaqueline Harvey, Sylvia Hannan, Catherine Namome, Palesa Sekhejane, and Ncamisile Zulu. TIMSS is a project of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), which is headquartered in Amsterdam. The IEA, with the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Centre, which is based at Boston College, released the international results of the study today.
The results of the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were released today, and have confirmed that the Western Cape is the country’s top-performing province in Mathematics and Science.
The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) conducts the study every four years with a nationally-representative sample of Grade 5 and Grade 9 learners.
For Grade 5 learners, the Western Cape was the best performing province in South Africa in both Mathematics and Science. Our province achieved a score of 441 for Mathematics, 67 points above the national average and 31 points above Gauteng in second place. For Science, the score was 415, which is an incredible 91 points above the national average and 36 points above Gauteng.
The Department of Basic Education has presented the latest findings of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2019 (TIMSS), showing how South African students compare to the rest of the world.
The report primarily focuses on Grade 4 and Grade 8 students, however some countries choose to administer TIMSS to a different grade.
Pretoria, Tuesday 8 December 2020
South Africa participated in TIMSS 2015 and 2019, at the Grade 5 level, in order to monitor educational progress in the primary education system. The Mathematics achievement in TIMSS 2015 and 2019 remains the same. “This is different to the TIMSS results at the secondary level, where an improvement in mathematics achievement was observed, suggesting the need for greater attention from the state and other stakeholders to the primary education sector to improve the acquisition of knowledge and achievements ” says Dr Vijay Reddy, Principal Investigator of TIMSS 2019 and Distinguished Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council.