Special challenges in mathematics education in Sub Sahara Africa

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Highlights

  • Ineffective instructional approaches causing misinformed understanding of mathematics concepts among learners.

  • Inadequate learning material, science laboratories, and equipment to support mathematics teaching and learning.

  • Poor technology infrastructure to promote equity and equality to a high quality of mathematics instruction.

  • Unpreparedness for the digital transformation of teacher trainers, teachers, and learners for digital classes.

  • Poor quality of teacher trainees, trainers, and old teacher education curriculum.

Educational difficulties in mathematics education in Africa are diverse. Research shows that the challenges experienced in mathematics education are a by-product of those in education in general, and these span from policy, curriculum, instruction, learning, and information technology to infrastructure. Earlier commissioned studies by the World Bank revealed that there is a growing recognition that countries in sub-Saharan Africa (n = 48) need to improve their performance in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects if they were to grasp their full latent potential in a competitive global market that is increasingly shaped by the new technologically dependent world order. This study endeavors to document recently identified special challenges in mathematics education in Africa revealed in research over the past two years. Fifty-eight articles were reviewed, of which seven papers provide annotation of major findings of outstanding interest.

Introduction

The World Bank report by Bethell [1] is perhaps the most comprehensive report on mathematics-education challenges in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in recent years, as it outlines the challenges thereof, possible solutions thereto, and suggestions for further research. In a decade-old survey by the International Mathematics Union [2], and recently, in a review by Evans and Acosta [3••], the same challenges with regard to mathematics education in SSA were highlighted. These challenges include inadequate teaching and learning material, a shortage of qualified and trained teachers of mathematics, especially in rural, disadvantaged communities, ineffective assessment systems that fail to provide mathematics teachers with the information they need to improve student achievement and instruction, fragmented teacher-training programs that are ill-equipped to adopt new approaches toward the effective teaching of mathematics, and institutions and teachers being ill-prepared to adapt to new teaching technologies as they become available. In a survey that involved the global mathematics-education community, Bakker, Cai, and Zenger [4••] identified such challenges and formulated them into themes, namely “teaching approaches, goals, relations to practices outside mathematics education, teacher professional development, technology, affect, equity, and assessment”, as the focus of research in mathematics education in the coming decade. Of these themes, this study attempted to address the ones that posed the most challenges to the countries of SSA.

On a positive note, the World Bank [5] reports evidence on the expansion of education in terms of primary school enrollment, and the median completion rate for both primary and secondary school learners has improved significantly in Africa. Recent studies provide evidence of incremental improvement in general pedagogy [6], which includes lesson planning, specific instructional approaches 7, 8, teaching and learning material 9••, 10, teacher training, and the provision of professional development programs and other intervention initiatives for in-service teachers 11, 12, 13. The improvements are, however, in relation to specific topical sections in mathematics [14••]. However, some researchers, such as Taylor [15••], disagree with the view that there is improvement in in-service teacher training in South Africa and argue that the system is dysfunctional.

Section snippets

Search approach and inclusion conditions

This paper limited its focus on research that met the following conditions: articles or studies in mathematics that addressed challenges encountered when learning, teaching, and establishing appropriate mathematics-teaching environments in Africa published from 2020 to 2021; challenges in training mathematics teachers; challenges in implementing intervention programs for mathematics teachers and learners in Africa; and last, issues involving information technology and mathematics learning.

Challenges in mathematics education in Africa

Mathematics education in high schools in Africa has several problems, especially in rural regions. Inadequate learning material, science laboratories, and equipment to support mathematics teaching and learning all contribute to students’ low performance 14••, 20. Among the challenges in mathematics education in African countries is poor technology infrastructure to promote equity and equality to a high quality of mathematics instruction for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status

Technology and the digital divide

There is evidence that the appropriate use of educational technology has a positive effect on both teaching and learning [38]. Research [39] shows that teachers and learners who use technological devices and applications, such as tablets and interactive lessons for learners and supplementary professional development programs for teachers, show gains in instructional approaches among teachers or reading and mathematics among learners. Most schools in Africa lack learning technologies, and it is

Intervention during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the digital divide. The pandemic has changed the landscape of mathematics education, teaching, and learning worldwide in a way that was not anticipated by any country [37]. Many publications from 2020 to 2021 were dedicated to the challenges imposed on schooling systems in Africa as a result of the devastating effect of COVID-19 5, 31, 35, 56. Ngoepe [56], for instance, insists that the management of the mathematics curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic

Conclusion

The reviewed articles revealed a contradiction between what international and regional mathematics-education reviews (n = 7) advocate for an effective teachers’ intervention and professional development program. Most research in the past two years has been on instructional approaches to address specific content areas in mathematics (12 out of 60) and learners’ content knowledge (n = 21) in specific topics. Only four out of 28 articles addressed intervention in mathematics education in SSA. The

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflict of interest. There was no funding required for this manuscript.

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