In this article we report on what Grade 8 learners say about the new curriculum reforms in
South Africa – Outcomes-based Education (OBE) and Curriculum 2005 (C2005) – that
were introduced into their mathematics classrooms. The article begins by addressing what
is argued to be a gap in reform research in mathematics education. It draws primarily on
focus group interviews conducted with learners after having observed a series of consecutive
lessons in three different previously racially segregated schools in the Durban region from
the international study on mathematics learners' perspectives. The analysis is organised in
five broad themes that emerged from the data, some of which resonate with the design
features of the curriculum reforms: a strong focus on group work; the attempt to forge
relations between mathematics and context; changes in the use of learning-teaching materials
such as worksheets; issues of assessment; and learners' take-up of the discourse of the new
curriculum approach. Learners' views seem to be linked to their teachers' explicit
(non)engagement with the new curriculum, and they appear to be aware of the tensions and
trade-offs for themselves in the enactment of the new curriculum.
