The latest TIMSS findings on South African schoolchildren's math performance, revealing significant gender gaps and the impact of Covid-19 on education.
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The global Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is conducted every four years with 33 countries participating, including South Africa
TIMMS is an international assessment that measures the mathematics and science achievement of students in fourth and eighth grades across participating countries, allowing researchers to compare how well students are performing against expected curriculum standards.
The period between the 2019 and 2023 cycles were influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing and school closures.
South Africa was among the countries with the highest school closures, with the Department of Basic Education estimating that an average of 152 school contact days were lost in 2020 and 2021.
Education researcher Vijay Reddy has studied South African math performance for grade 5 students in primary school and grade 9 students at secondary school in South African schools.
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 to 2023.
South Africa was one of 16 countries where there were no significant changes.
The reasons for these results may be that secondary school learners experienced more school support compared with primary schools, or were more mature and resilient, enabling them to recover from the learning losses experienced during Covid-19.
The research indicates that as South African learners get older, they acquire better skills in how to learn, read and take tests to achieve better results.
However, the primary school result patterns were different. For South African children, there was a significant drop in mathematics achievement by 12 points, from 374 in 2019 to 362 in 2023.
Of the 51 countries that participated there were no significant achievement changes in 22 countries, a significant increase in 15 countries, and a significant decrease in 14 countries, of which South Africa was one.
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 may also be due to poor reading and language skills as well as lack of familiarity with this type of test.
Globally boys are more likely to outperform girls in math performance, however in South African primary schools, girls outscore boys in both mathematics and reading.
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.
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