An international survey of schoolchildren’s maths and science competency has told us that South African children perform on average at no more than 60% of the level of those in the world’s top performer, Singapore. The latest results from the global Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) show that our grade 5 and 9 pupils still score far below 400 when the TIMSS centre point is 500 and countries such as Singapore are at about 600 or more.