Teacher Training
AIMSSEC Program in South Africa
The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre (AIMSSEC) was established in 2003.
The main objectives of the AIMSSEC program are to advance educational opportunities for disadvantaged communities, to introduce new skills to teaching and learning mathematics and to raise the standards of mathematics teaching in South Africa.
To spread the benefits of this work more widely, AIMSSEC runs professional development courses for teachers from disadvantaged rural and township schools and empowers them to train other teachers in their areas. AIMSSEC blended learning courses for primary and secondary teachers, subject advisers and field trainers from all over South Africa combine residential units, home-study, regularly marked assignments, online learning and TV broadcasts and examinations for qualifications awarded by AIMS and the Universities of Stellenbosch and Fort Hare.
Since its inception a total of 1,240 teachers have taken the AIMSSEC three-month Mathematical Thinking (MT) course. This course acts as a prerequisite for the two year AIMSSEC Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) course which has a focus on subject leader training and now has 144 graduates.
AIMSSEC runs world-class courses staffed by a strong local team together with an international team of over 50 academics who lecture as unpaid volunteers, and this also makes the work of AIMSSEC more cost effective.
AIMSSEC ACE graduates make a valuable contribution as teaching assistants.
"1,240 teachers have taken the AIMSSEC Mathematical Thinking course- a prerequisite for the two year AIMSSEC Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) course which has a focus on subject leader training and now has 144 graduates"
Training programmes
Mathematics Teacher Training Program in Cameroon
The Mathematics Teacher Training Program at AIMS is a 5 year pilot program in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation, AIMS, ADEA and the government of Cameroon to improve the quality of secondary schools math education by training math lecturers, inspectors and experienced teachers as master trainers who will in turn train secondary school math teachers.
This is intended to strengthen the content and delivery of mathematics at the secondary school level across Cameroon, which will contribute to build and strengthen the pipeline of students continuing into STEM fields at the tertiary level.
This program is designed to Train master trainers, inspectors, principals, teachers and student teachers (in-service and soon-to-be-qualified teachers).
It follows a “train-the-trainer” cascade approach that enhances the pedagogical expertise of all mathematics lecturers at the three Higher Teacher Training Colleges (HTTCs) and mathematics lectures of the University of Buea, forming a core pedagogical team that provides training to student teachers, and facilitates access to additional skills for existing in-service teachers, inspectors and principals.
AIMS provides support and resources through an Information and Communication Technology platform to groups of math teachers who share a concern or a passion for mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning.
It organizes annual national and regional teacher conferences, and develop teaching kits and tools.
This awards program will popularize mathematics and reward excellence in teaching performance.
We recognize the best math students, teachers and schools by awarding prizes to reward performance, sustain motivation and raise public awareness of the importance of mathematics.
The program will drive secondary school mathematics curricula and pedagogy to be globally competitive.
AIMS will update and standardize curriculum content by ensuring consistent quality control of teacher qualification and assessment criteria, an increased investment in teacher training.
AIMS will advocate for math education nationally and internationally.
AIMS advocates for math education by working with relevant government ministries (Higher Education, Secondary Education, Public Service, Finance, Information Technology), regional bodies like ADEA , UNESCO, and other stakeholders.
We document the pilot into a toolkit working with ADEA that can be replicable through the African Ministerial conferences.
