Education researcher Vijay Reddy takes stock of South Africa’s mathematical capabilities. She reports on South African maths performance at grades 5 (primary school) and 9 (secondary school) in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and examines the gender gaps in mathematics achievement.
What was unusual about the latest TIMSS study?
The study is conducted every four years. South Africa has participated in the secondary phase since 1995 and the primary phase since 2015. The period between the 2019 and 2023 cycles was characterised by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and school closures.
The Department of Basic Education estimated that an average of 152 school contact days were lost in 2020 and 2021. South Africa was among the countries with the highest school closures, along with Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil. On the other hand, European countries lost fewer than 50 days.
Some academics measured the extent of learning losses for 2020 and 2021 school closures, but there were no models to estimate subsequent learning losses. We can get some clues about the effects of learning over four years by comparing patterns within South Africa against those in other countries.
How did South African learners (and others) perform in the maths study?
The South African grade 9 mathematics achievement improved by 8 points from 389 in TIMSS 2019 to 397 in 2023. From the trends to TIMSS 2019, we predicted a mathematics score of 403 in 2023.
For the 33 countries that participated in both the 2019 and 2023 secondary school TIMSS cycles, the average achievement decreased by 9 points from 491 in 2019 to 482 in 2023. Only three countries showed significant increases (United Arab Emirates, Romania and Sweden). There were no significant changes in 16 countries (including South Africa). However, there were substantial decreases in 14 countries.
Based on these numbers, it would seem, on the face of it at least, that South Africa weathered the COVID-19 losses better than half the other countries.
However, the primary school result patterns were different. There was a significant drop in mathematics achievement for South African children by 12 points, from 374 in 2019 to 362 in 2023. As expected, the highest decreases were in the poorer, no-fee schools.
Of the 51 countries that participated in both TIMSS 2019 and 2023, the average mathematics achievement score over the two cycles was similar. There were no significant achievement changes in 22 countries, a significant increase in 15 countries and a significant decrease in 14 countries (including South Africa).
So, it seems South African primary school learners suffered adverse learning effects over the two cycles.
The increase in achievement in secondary school and decrease in primary school was unexpected. These reasons for the results may be that secondary school learners experienced more school support than primary schools, or were more mature and resilient, enabling them to recover from the learning losses experienced during COVID-19. Learners in primary schools, especially poorer schools, may have been more affected by the loss of school contact time and had less support to fully recover during this time.
This pattern may also be due to poor reading and language skills and lack of familiarity with this type of test.
Does gender make a difference?
There is extant literature indicating that boys are more likely to outperform girls globally in maths.
But in South African primary schools, girls outscore boys in both mathematics and reading. Girls significantly outscored boys by an average of 29 points for mathematics (TIMSS) and 49 points for reading in the 2021 Progress in International Reading Study, PIRLS.
These patterns need further exploration. Of the 58 countries participating in TIMSS at primary schools, boys significantly outscored girls in 40 countries, and there were no achievement differences in 17 countries. South Africa was the only country where the girls significantly outscored boys. In Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique, the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SEACMEQ) reading scores are similar for girls and boys, while the boys outscore girls in mathematics. In Botswana, girls outscore boys in reading and mathematics, but the gender difference is much smaller.
In secondary schools, girls continue to outscore boys, but the gap drops to 8 points. Of the 42 TIMSS countries, boys significantly outscored girls in maths in 21 countries; there were no significant differences in 17 countries, and girls significantly outscored boys in only four countries (South Africa, Palestine, Oman, Bahrain).
In summary, the South African primary school achievement trend relative to secondary school is unexpected and requires further investigation. It seems that as South African learners get older, they acquire better skills in how to learn, read and take tests to achieve better results. Results from lower grades should be used cautiously to predict subsequent educational outcomes.
Unusually, in primary schools, there is a significant gender difference in mathematics achievement favouring girls. The gender difference persists to grade 9, but the extent of the difference decreases. As learners, especially boys, progress through the education system, they seem to make up for their learning shortcomings and catch up.
The national mathematics picture would look much better if boys and girls performed at the same level in primary school, suggesting the importance of interventions in primary schools, especially focusing on boys.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
