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It is indisputable that one of the factors connected to improvements in the quality of education is the implementation of relevant curricular reform that is pertinent to the culture and needs of the given country. This study aimed to comprehensively investigate how the adaptation from an exogenous curriculum was attempted through analysing the three mathematics curricula for the years 1983, 2004, and 2015 that have been applied after independence, reports and policy papers issued by the Ministry of Education (MINED), and interviews with technical officials involved with the curriculum revision in 2015. The results show that Mozambique has been steadily and appropriately moving away from an exogenous curriculum in a cycle of 10 years through the accumulation of their own experiences. The series of observations that we attained could be relevant to other African nations from the viewpoint of transitioning away from an exogenous curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Girls performing well in mathematics at school do not necessarily enrol for mathematics courses at South African universities. Teachers could be transferring beliefs about the nature of mathematics favouring boys. This paper compared male and female pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics. A quantitative, descriptive research approach was adopted. One hundred and twenty-six mathematics pre-service teachers, enrolled for an undergraduate teaching training programme at a South African university, completed a questionnaire. While both genders hold the same Platonist and instrumentalist beliefs, females embrace lower experimentalist beliefs than males. Research on differences between male and female pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics could promote gender equity in mathematics teacher training and better facilitation of the subject, which might consequently encourage more girls to opt for mathematics-related careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]