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.