Towards Unifying Logic for the Pedagoy of Mathematics in South Africa

South Africa’s performance in mathematics at school level is not impressive, even when measured against countries with fewer resources. As a country, it is one of the lowest performers in the world with a wide range of achievement between schools, with historically white schools achieving results much closer to the international average compared to historically-black African schools. The South African National Planning Commission has identified mathematics education as a key area of concern, particularly amongst poor children. In response, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) initiated a research project to explore the possibility of a ‘unifying pedagogy’ that could help improve mathematics teaching across the range of schools in the country. This paper presents a summary of the ‘cumulative resonances’ of ‘sagacious’ members of the mathematics education community in South Africa and abroad. The data generated by these ‘sagacious’ sources’ in academia and governmental and non-governmental organisations were analysed thematically in order to explore the possibility of framing a unifying pedagogy of mathematics for South African conditions.