Mathematics Education In Africa

*THIS BOOK WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE AS OPEN ACCESS BOOK* This book is a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners as it brings insights mainly from developing countries where relatively less research activity takes place. It is also a valuable resource for courses in mathematics education in the teacher education colleges, and departments of education in the sub-Saharan Africa region. In the increasingly global and technological world mathematics is seen as a significant gatekeeper of opportunities for social and economic advancement and mobility. Hence, countries and development agencies in the broader sub-Saharan Africa region are looking towards increasing access to relevant and high-quality secondary education as a lever towards economic development. Policy makers and other key decision makers in education look towards improvement in mathematics teaching and learning as a key focus in education reform. In the East Africa region also a number of initiatives have been taken at the national level in the respective countries to improve the quality of mathematics education. This book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of the developments and issues in mathematics education in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, and advances our understanding of the state of secondary mathematics education in East Africa.

This book is about mathematics teaching and learning in Africa during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has evolved to utilize new technologies in the teaching and learning of Mathematics. It is characterized by the fusion of the biological, physical and digital worlds and embodies a new era of innovation in mathematics education, leading to the rapid emergence of new technologies for mathematics teaching and learning. Because 4IR in mathematics education is happening differently in various parts of Africa, the authors of the various chapters in this volume have positioned their work in their respective local contexts. The chapters address a wide variety of interests, concerns, and implications regarding 4IR and Mathematics Education in Africa. Additionally, a number of chapters address teaching mathematics in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world. Other chapters discuss the implications of inequalities in Africa that effect mathematics education during 4IR. Chapters also incorporate arguments, observations, and suggestions to, improve and transform the teaching and learning of mathematics in Africa during the 4IR. This book highlights a new era of innovation in mathematics education in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, leading to the rapid emergence of new technologies in mathematics teaching and learning. It is a valuable resource for graduate students, people with research interests in the fourth industrial revolution and mathematics educators at any level, including all mathematics teachers; mathematics education curriculum designers and policymakers.

Reflecting on the theoretical and ideological work that has contributed to the growth of mathematics education research in South Africa, this study provides a historical analysis of forces that have changed and shaped mathematics curricula over the years. The themes researched and explored include radical pedagogy, progressive classroom practices, ethnomathematics, and South African mathematics education research within both its local and international contexts.

This book brings together the first book collection of African research in mathematics education in multilingual societies and chronicles current research in different linguistic contexts across the African continent, (including Algeria, Namibia, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa) on issues of multilingualism in mathematics education, but more importantly, it foregrounds pertinent issues for future research. With many of the authors building on earlier path-breaking African research, the book is a unique contribution of careful thinking through how linguistic diversity and multilingualism manifest in ways that differ from one geopolitical context to another. This volume is an important contribution to the growing recognition of multilingualism as the global 'linguistic dispensation' in mathematics education. It is an invitation to how we might (as an international community where more and more multilingualism is the norm rather than an exception) pay more attention to the multilingual agency and capabilities of both students and teachers in order to better harness the epistemic potential of multiple languages in contexts of language diversity in mathematics education.

This book focuses on how to improve the teaching and learning of primary level mathematics education within resource-constrained contexts. It builds on two large numeracy projects within South Africa which speak to broader, global concerns and highlight how research and development not only enables one to meet ethical imperatives but also explore how further interventions can be developed. Teacher and research communities must work together to create mutually beneficial relationships and establish a cohesive understanding of the requirements of primary mathematics education.

The book represents a crop of wide-ranging research conducted by renown scholars in sub-Sahara Africa revolving around mathematics teaching and professional development programs for mathematics teachers. The research-based proposals and actual how-to-conduct professional development initiatives that enhance effective mathematics instruction are rooted in teacher input and informed by learners’ errors and misconceptions. The book provides a comprehensive snapshot on mathematics teaching, learning and effective professional development programmes for mathematics teachers in sub-Sahara Africa. It is the only research output that advances and disseminates issues of mathematics education and research in the region with input from South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Namibia, Lesotho, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

This open access book, inspired by the ICME 13 Thematic Afternoon on “European Didactic Traditions”, takes readers on a journey with mathematics education researchers, developers and educators in eighteen countries, who reflect on their experiences with Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), the domain-specific instruction theory for mathematics education developed in the Netherlands since the late 1960s. Authors from outside the Netherlands discuss what aspects of RME appeal to them, their criticisms of RME and their past and current RME-based projects. It is clear that a particular approach to mathematics education cannot simply be transplanted to another country. As such, in eighteen chapters the authors describe how they have adapted RME to their individual circumstances and view on mathematics education, and tell their personal stories about how RME has influenced their thinking on mathematics education.

Developing Science, Mathematics and ICT (SMICT) in Secondary Education is based on country studies from ten Sub-Saharan African countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and a literature review. It reveals a number of huge challenges in SMICT education in sub-Saharan Africa: poorly-resourced schools; large classes; a curriculum hardly relevant to the daily lives of students; a lack of qualified teachers; and inadequate teacher education programs. Through examining country case studies, this paper discusses the lessons for improvement of SMICT in secondary education in Africa.