Pretoria, Friday 11 December 2020

The Western Cape province, in addition to being part of the national sample, participated as a self-standing entity called a “benchmarking participant” in TIMSS 2019. This provides Western Cape an opportunity to assess the comparative international standing of their learners’ achievement. “It is brave for the province to expose its educational outcomes to international scrutiny” says Dr Vijay Reddy, Principal Investigator of TIMSS 2019 and Distinguished Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council.  Reddy adds that the results from the Western Cape TIMSS  provides a more precise estimate of achievement scores and an opportunity for a more textured analysis of the teaching and learning in the province.