Mathematics and work: Educating for the future
- Aarifah Gardee, Zaheera Jina Asvat and Karin Brodie
All learners can do mathematics, as long as educators convey both the elegance and utility of the subjects.
The principles of mathematics underpin problem-solving, decision-making, and innovation across every industry. Finance professionals use mathematics to model investments, analyse risk, and calculate interest. Engineers rely on calculus and algebra for designing structures and optimising systems. In healthcare, mathematics ensures accurate dosages, enables imaging to be interpreted, and underpins epidemiology; a lot of mathematics went into understanding how the SARS-COV-2 virus spreads and how it might be contained. Manufacturing applies geometry for quality control and product design, while retail and hospitality use arithmetic for cost management and inventory control. Creative fields including graphic design and gaming use geometry and transformations for functional designs. Beyond utility, mathematics also reveals beauty and joy through patterns, puzzles, and abstract elegance.
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies transform global and local workplaces, mathematics education becomes increasingly vital. Core areas such as linear algebra, calculus, probability, and statistics drive AI algorithms, enabling data analysis, pattern recognition, and predictive modelling. Discrete mathematics underpins coding and data structures. Mathematics is needed both to use and critique AI. Beyond AI, mathematics cultivates critical thinking and problem-solving – skills that are essential in an automated world.
Pedagogy problems
Despite the importance of mathematics, South African learners do not do well in the subject, putting in poor performances in national and international assessments. The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, 2023) shows that South African Grade 5 learners ranked last out of 58 countries, and Grade 9 learners were fifth from the bottom. There are many possible explanations for our poor performance, including under-resourced schools and classrooms, difficulties with the language of learning, teaching and assessment, and an overcrowded curriculum, with little time and space for exploring important mathematical concepts.
A key challenge is pedagogy – how mathematics is taught. In many South African schools, mathematics is presented as a set of rules and procedures, which removes learners from its deeper meaning and relevance. Research shows that this approach can lead to frustration and anxiety. Learners engage better when mathematics is seen as something creative, collaborative, and that accelerates problem-solving.
Value effort, not ability
For substantial change to occur, learners should experience mathematics conceptually, with meaning, and by being able to apply the skills of collaboration, inquiry, and problem-solving. Classrooms in which teachers respect and value learners and believe that effort – not ability – leads to success, foster positive outcomes. When learners appreciate the importance of effort in success, they are better prepared for their futures, as perseverance and resilience play a key role in today’s work environment, which is marked by rapid technological changes.
Despite the discouraging results from the TIMSS and other studies, it is essential for us as educators to remember that all learners have the ability to do mathematics. Our role is to transmit the beauty and utility of the subject, rather than just teaching rules to be followed. By re-imagining how mathematics is taught and valued, we can transform South Africa’s education landscape. This change will not only prepare learners for standardised tests but also equip them for meaningful participation in the real world.
Teaching the teachers
However, many South African teachers are not trained to teach mathematics in a meaningful way. An overcrowded curriculum, and mostly procedural assessments, do not help. Having experienced many years of rote learning and “chalk-and-talk” approaches as learners, teachers carry these practices into their own teaching.
Research suggests that without actively engaging with new pedagogies during training, pre-service teachers may dismiss new ideas as irrelevant and replicate the teaching methods that they experienced.
Finding meaning in mathematics
In the Wits School of Education, we work with our pre-service students to develop mathematics pedagogies with a strong focus on pedagogical reasoning. In their classes, they learn mathematics conceptually and deeply and are encouraged to think about what the mathematics means. In their methodology classes, they think about how learners might engage with the subject, and how to create tasks that support learners to develop conceptual understanding.
An online programme: Teacher Choices in Action (TCiA) teaches them how to observe classrooms carefully, helping them to interrogate prior beliefs shaped by their experiences as learners, and to think about what today’s learners need to learn as they move into the future.
We also work with in-service teachers, supporting them to think about the mathematics that they are teaching and how learners are receiving it. This work has enabled a number of current teachers to shift their practices. All of our work is informed by the research we do – research based in South African classrooms and focused on meaningful mathematics, on critical thinking and problem-solving, and on caring for all learners, as students of mathematics.
Mathematics is crucial across industries and despite digital and technological advances, its role is ever more important. To counter South Africa’s challenges in the mathematics classroom, including poor performance in international assessments, initiatives in the Wits School of Education are improving teacher training and promoting problem-solving approaches, offering solutions for a more effective and inclusive mathematics education system.
- Zaheera Jina Asvat lectures Mathematics Education in the Wits School of Education. Her research focuses on identity, agency, and belonging within education and society, as well as mathematics pre-service teacher development and teachers’ mathematical identities.
- Karin Brodie is a Professor in the Wits School of Education. She researches mathematics teacher development, professional learning communities, mathematics clubs and learners’ mathematical identities.
- Aarifah Gardee lectures Mathematics Education in the Wits School of Education. She researches learners’ mathematical identities in secondary schools and how they are shaped by classroom contexts.
- This article first appeared in?Curiosity,?a research magazine produced by?Wits Communications?and the?Research Office.
- Read more in the 18th issue, themed #Work, which delves into the evolving nature of work, shaped by societal shifts, technological advances, and equity challenges.