Publication: Mathematics Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities
Loading...
Date
2016-06
ISSN
Published
2016-06
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This study on Assessment of mathematics education in Sub Saharan African countries is in support of the efforts to improve mathematics education in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study is in response to a growing recognition that countries in SSA will need to boost performance in the Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects if they are to realize their full potential in a competitive global market increasingly shaped by the use of new technologies. Chapter 1 of this report lists the constituent countries of SSA and describes the study’s research questions and methods. Chapter 2 explores the economic and social arguments for making the improvement of mathematics education in the region a priority. Chapter 3 presents evidence as to current levels of numeracy and mathematical competence in the countries of SSA from a wide range of assessments. Chapter 4 looks at factors which have the potential to raise mathematical achievement indirectly by improving the quality of schooling in general. Chapter 5 considers the effectiveness of various interventions targeted specifically at improving mathematical outcomes. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 are dedicated to issues concerning the capacities of serving teachers of mathematics and the pre-service training arrangements for those preparing to teach mathematics in schools. Chapter 8 describes assessment practices and their potential roles in improving learning outcomes. Chapter 9 gives an overview of a range of more recent initiatives designed to improve mathematics education both in SSA and beyond. Chapter 10 summarizes the study’s main findings and sets out some suggestions for overcoming barriers to progress. Finally, Appendix A sets out the findings of the in-country surveys.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Bethell, George. 2016. Mathematics Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25289 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Developing Science, Mathematics, and ICT Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : Patterns and Promising Practices(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)This thematic study is about developing science, mathematics and ICT (SMICT) in secondary education. The study is based on country studies from 10 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.Publication Governance, Management, and Accountability in Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)The purpose of this study, educations for all has led to a significant increase in the number of students completing primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It has also created tremendous demand for secondary education. This paper discusses the processes that support upward and downward accountability in the secondary education system and processes designed to ensure internal accountability and accountability for learning outcomes. This report focuses on school-level management as the place where governance structures and management processes converge. It examines the role of various governance structures for secondary schools and their impact on the management of teachers and of general academic and financial management. Finally this publication summarizes the discussions in terms of the key issues and suggestions for improvements within educational governance, management, and accountability.Publication Strengthening Mathematics Education in Sri Lanka(Washington, DC, 2011-07)A well-informed and knowledgeable community is of vital importance for the economic and social development of a modem society. The knowledge and skills required for present day activities are much more complex than those required in the past. Today, many jobs require expert thinking and non-routine analytical skills, to identify and solve problems. Mathematics education focuses on developing a person's analytical and problem solving abilities. Thus a high quality mathematics education win ensure that students develop the skills that are essential not only in science and technology, but also in everyday life and the workplace. The government of Sri Lanka, recognizing the need for a high quality mathematics education has implemented several reforms in the recent past. Although the progress achieved is commendable, there is still room for improvement in certain important aspects of the learning teaching process. The main aim of the mathematics curriculum under these reforms is to create individuals who are able to think mathematically and apply mathematical knowledge effectively and responsibly in problem solving and decision making.Publication Gender Equity in Junior and Senior Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)This thematic study is about gender equity in junior and senior secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It consists of case studies of Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda, as well as, a review of studies undertaken over the past ten years on education in Africa with particular attention to girls' and secondary education. Gender equity at the primary level has been the focus of considerable attention within the education for all frameworks of action, but much less so at the secondary level. Evidence of gender inequity and inequality in terms of access, retention and performance in secondary education in SSA raises many questions. While transition rates from primary to secondary are higher for girls than boys, and the repetition rates are lower, girls still significantly trail behind boys in terms of secondary gross enrollment rate (GER). The purpose of this study is to document and analyze the extent and nature of gender disadvantage in junior and senior secondary education, to analyze the causes of this disadvantage and to identify strategies that may be effective in reducing or eliminating it. This thematic study will make a timely and useful contribution to the debate on Secondary Education and Training in Africa (SEIA) issues.Publication Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Comparative Analysis(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-06-26)As in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003)Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.