Globalization of chemistry education in Africa: Challenges and opportunities

The international monitoring systems on students' science performance, such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for the International Student Assessment (PISA), play an influential role in international science education reforms. This chapter reports some interesting findings from the analysis of the differences between African and non-African countries in the results from these monitoring systems. For instance, with regard to gender difference in science performance in participating African countries, girls' average scores were all higher than the boys' ones on TIMSS, while there were no significant differences between genders in most of the non-African countries. As for PISA, the results showed that girls outperformed boys in science between 2003 and 2012 for Tunisia, but the difference was only statistically significant in 2003. The last part of the chapter considers the introduction of innovative technology (such as augmented reality and virtual reality) for chemistry learning; high motivation from students was revealed promisingly. It is concluded that, even though the average scores from African countries did not reach the average scores of the other participating countries on TIMSS and PISA, there are still a lot of opportunities for learning science in African countries during this era.