African Institute For Mathematical Sciences

Toni Beardon

  • FaSMEd Partner Team Member
  • Email:
  • Telephone: +44 (0)1223 560582
  • African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Schools Enrichment Centre (AIMSSEC), South Africa

Toni has taught for 50 years in schools and universities in the UK, USA and South Africa. At Cambridge University in 1987 she established a new 2 year postgraduate teacher training programme and a student community service project and then, in 1996, she set up the NRICH Online Mathematics Club and other online projects, now the Cambridge University Millennium Mathematics Programme www.mmp.maths.org.

In 2003 Toni was awarded an OBE for her contribution to mathematics education in the UK.  In 2003 Toni founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences School Enrichment Centre (AIMSSEC www.aimssec.aims.ac.za). AIMSSEC runs distance learning courses with bursaries for teachers from disadvantaged comunities. Lecturers come from all over the world to teach without pay on the AIMSSEC residential courses in the school holidays.

AIMSSEC now serves the pan-African AIMS network (www.nexteinstein.org). In 2012 AIMSSEC won the UNESCO UNESCO-Hamdan Prize for Outstanding Practice and Performance in Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teachers in Developing Countries. Toni’s husband Alan is a mathematician and they have 4 children and 6 grandchildren.