The South African TIMSS 2019 Grade 5 results

The post-school education and training system in South Africa has been the focus of much attention since the establishment of the Department of Higher Education and Training in 2009. In the context of deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment, the need for a humanising, liberating and critical approach to learning and pedagogy in post-school education is becoming urgent. The rural and urban voices that speak in this book tell us that the current system is out of touch with the ways in which they are making a life.

Despite a strong emphasis on teacher education and development in post-apartheid South Africa, statistics show a low retention of beginner teachers in the teaching profession. This trend has serious implications for learner outcomes, given the contribution teachers can and should make to learner achievement.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assesses mathematics and science knowledge of fourth and eighth grade learners around the world. South Africa has participated in six of the seven TIMSS cycles (1995–2019), at the eighth or ninth grade, providing a rich dataset spanning 24 years.

Scholars in the Marketplace is a case study of market-based reforms at Uganda's Makerere University. With the World Bank heralding neo-liberal reform at Makerere as the model for the transformation of higher education in Africa, it has implications for the whole continent. At the global level, the Makerere case exemplifies the fate of public universities in a market-oriented and capital-friendly era.