Caroline Long is a researcher at the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Pretoria. She previously worked at Wits University, where she taught courses in assessment to B. Sc. Honours students, and general mathematics courses to prospective teachers at undergraduate level. She is currently researching the topic ratio and proportional reasoning from different perspectives. On the theoretical side she examines how epistemological and historical factors inform the development of related subtopics within this field and from the empirical side she investigates how Grade 7s, 8s and 9s respond to selected items taken from the TIMSS 2003 study. Caroline has presented regularly at AMESA conferences and published in Pythagoras.

Anil Kanjee is the executive director of the National Education Quality Initiative at the HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council). He obtained his PhD in research and evaluation methods from the University of Massachusetts. His career included lecturing in psychology at the Universities of the Western Cape, Massachusetts, Witwatersrand and Pretoria. He has extensive experience in the technical and practical aspects of assessment. Specific research interests include the development of monitoring and evaluation systems in the education sector, and the use of information from national and international assessments to improve the teaching and learning process.

Michael Kahn is the executive director of the Knowledge Systems unit at the HSRC. He has worked internationally as academic, independent consultant, and adviser to government and higher education. His fields of interest span science and technology and information policy, science education, and the promotion of public communication in these fields. He holds postgraduate degrees in physics, and policy and planning. From 1999 to 2002 he occupied the Chair of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education at the University of Cape Town, and in parallel was adviser to the Minister of Education, in which role he led the development of national strategies for both science and mathematics education.

Renuka Vithal is Professor in Mathematics Education and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has published widely in the fields of mathematics education and in educational research. She  is a member of the editorial boards of several national and international journals where she often has to serves as a reviewer. Her doctoral research  explores the relation between mathematics teaching and learning and issues of democracy, equity and social justice. She has also been the South African project leader for an international study on “Learners’ perspectives of grade eight mathematics classrooms”.  She is a member of the South African National Committee for the International Mathematical Union representing the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa.