In 1996, over two decades ago, as a Mathematics teacher trainer at a teacher training college in then Swaziland, I conducted a study (Luneta 1997) that involved six countries: Swaziland (Eswatini), Lesotho, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal province only), Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The survey had two questions for the heads of Mathematics Departments in 10 randomly picked schools from the lists provided by the provincial officials. How many teachers do you have in your department and what are their qualifications? The response sent by post was relatively acceptable at 69%. The outcome was that many schools in Southern Africa, except for Zimbabwe and Zambia, then did not have enough qualified teachers to teach mathematics. The irony, however, was the fact that most mathematics posts in the schools were filled up. Vithal (1992) reported that in South Africa, there was a teacher shortage of between 70% and 90% in mathematics and science within African schools. The failure rate in mathematics in South Africa then was among the highest in the region (Paras 2001). The rate was just as high among the other regional countries. It was therefore prudent to determine the meaning of the Mathematics teacher shortage.

In Luneta (1997), I defined the shortage of Mathematics teachers as the inability to fill up or staff mathematics teaching posts with qualified and certified teachers of the subject. Recently, Sutcher, Darling-Hammond and Carver-Thomas (2019:4) have defined teacher shortages in general as the ‘insufficient production of new teachers, given the size of student enrolments and teacher retirements’. It is important to note that the shortage of Mathematics teachers in schools then was not only a Southern African problem, but a problem for the whole world, and it still persists today in 2024. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Fiske 2012) asserted that among subjects with a shortage of teachers, mathematics is ranked the highest. I affirmed in 1996 that the shortage came in two main forms as discussed further in the text.

This shortage is when schools lack mathematics-trained teachers, and this fact is acknowledged by the schools and the departments of education. This form of shortage is the most written about as schools report it to ministries of education and is often because of teacher attrition as a result of transfers, promotion and retirements (Wills 2023). The shortage of effective Mathematics teachers is still a concern in schools and highly publicised in research.

Eggleston & Dunn (1986) identified a ‘hidden shortage: where tuition in a subject is given by teachers considered to be inadequately qualified in it or lacking the personal qualities required for effective teaching’. Hidden shortage is a difficult form of shortage to identify and quantify because schools report these posts as occupied despite the fact that the occupants are not mathematics specialists and are often unqualified or under-qualified to teach mathematics.

Another form of hidden shortage of Mathematics teachers is that caused by overcrowding in classrooms resulting in even competent qualified teachers not being as effective as they should be (Wills 2023). Overcrowding results in limited teacher–learner interaction, impacts formative and summative assessments as teachers struggle to mark learners’ work on time, and class exercises, homework, remedial and enrichment activities are reduced and often unmarked.

Mathematics teachers who possess limited qualifications and experience in the subject are therefore considered a ‘hidden’ shortage and these appear in several forms (Ashiedu & Scott-Ladd 2012; Luneta 1997):

A recent report by Van der Berg, Gustafsson and Burger (2022) shows that South Africa will face a massive shortage of teachers in the next 10 years. In other southern African countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, the shortage is not necessarily in the quantity but the quality of the teachers in relation to their content and instructional knowledge of mathematics (Luneta 2022). Countries such as Namibia, Botswana and Zambia have recently reported excess in teacher output from universities and colleges. Malawi, on the other hand, has experienced a severe shortage of qualified teachers, leading to overcrowding in classroom with a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:130 (Sparkle Foundation 2024). Namibia faces both excess and shortage, with some rural regions experiencing shortages of qualified teachers, while urbanised areas had excess, to the point that the University of Namibia was lauded by the Namibian government for reducing the intake of its education students (The Namibian 04 July 2024).

Research (Du Preez 2018; Van der Berg et al. 2022; Wills 2023) has certified that there are reasons for the shortage of Mathematics teachers in Southern Africa.

The impact of the shortage of Mathematics teachers on the overall learning and cognitive development of learners is underestimated by departments of education worldwide. The failure rate is often associated with teachers’ lack of content and instructional knowledge and the learners’ inability to acquire conceptual as well as procedural knowledge required to excel in mathematics. While both conclusions have been proven to be true, that does not provide the solution to the problem of shortage of skilled Mathematics teachers in schools and how best to address it in order to enhance and optimise learning. Among research-induced solutions are:

In Luneta (2022), I developed what I called the three pillars of standard Mathematics curriculum that could be critical to professional development programmes that address Mathematics teachers’ shortage and effective mathematics instruction. Table 1 shows the three pillars of standard Mathematics curriculum envisaged: Teachers’ Instruction, Curriculum Content, and the Assessment of the curriculum. The final goal of a good curriculum points to the achievements of the learning outcomes (Luneta 2022:40):

After more than two decades, the shortage of Mathematics teachers in Southern African still persists. My concern then is still a live debate and widely researched construct. Overall, the shortage of effective Mathematics teachers in schools in the region has resulted in low conceptual knowledge acquisition by learners and increases in class sizes and teacher–learner ratios.