59 THE NEED FOR RELEVANT INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION FOR PRIMARY MATHEMATICS: EVIDENCE FROM THE PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION PROJECT IN SOUTH AFRICA Jogymol Kalariparampil Alex 1 , Nicky Roberts 2 1 corresponding author, Walter Sisulu University, Email: jalex@wsu.ac.za 2 University of Johannesburg, Centre for Education Practice Research (CEPR) ABSTRACT Recently, initial teacher education for primary mathematics teachers has drawn much attention worldwide due to its importance and contribution to childhood development. In South Africa, in response to a quest for relevant and quality primary mathematics teachers, the Primary Teacher Education (PrimTEd) pro ject has been established as a collaboration between all higher education institutions (HEIs). Different workstreams in PrimTEd are mandated to develop sets of commonly agreed standards, materials and assessments of knowledge for teaching primary mathematics. A common assessment in mathematics was deemed necessary to allow each HEI to reflect on their student intake, and design of their Bachelor of Education programmes (B.Eds). The assessment workstream constructed an online test of 90 minutes, consisting of 50 items on different mathematics concepts pertaining to foundation and intermediate phase school mathematics for teaching. The authors, analysed the performance of the 2017 pilot testing with first year students (n = 317) from two universities, and the 2018 national assessment (n = 1 117), where students from seven higher education institutions participated. The results from the 2017 pilot ( =45.89%,= 14.8) and 2018 national assessment ( =48.46%,= 16.8) reveal similar patterns of performance. As the test was set at the level of mathematics at which the students are expected to teach, it is concerning that the majority of students (71%) were not able to obtain more than 60%. This brings into question the assumptions made about the mathematics skills and competencies that entrants into the B.Ed programme bring with them into tertiary education. It is recommended that the lower than expected starting point, should be taking into account, when reflecting on the relevance of the preparation of primary mathematics teacher education for quality teachers of primary mathematics in South Africa. Keywords: Primary mathematics education; PrimTEd project; assessment; initial teacher education; relevance; South Africa INTRODUCTION International and national benchmarking studies conducted in South Africa (such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), the Annual National Assessments (ANA) and the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams) show that despite many years of mathematics development programmes aimed at redressing the devastating effects of the past, there is little evidence to prove we have made enough progress at the level of the learner (Pournara, Hodgen, Adler & Pillay, 2015).