The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction is planning a series of studies on topics of current interest within mathematics education. The first study was on the impact of computers and informatics on mathematics and its teaching at university and senior high school level. That study had as its centrepoint an international symposium held in Strasbourg, France in March, 1985 and attended by some seventy participants drawn from thirteen different countries.

The second study, which gave rise to this volume, has taken a slightly different form. First a discussion document, School Mathematics in the 1990s by A.G. Howson, B.F. Nebres and B.J. Wilson, was sent to all National Representatives of ICMI and circulated widely in the original English and in translation. A small, closed international seminar was then held in Kuwait in February, 1986 at which an invited group of mathematics educators, named on the title page of this book, considered issues raised in the discussion document, points made by those who had responded to that paper, and, of course, attempted to remedy its many omissions. This book is based on those discussions and has been prepared by Geoffrey Howson and Bryan Wilson. It is, as such, a compilation of views and certainly would not have the effect of drawing discussion amongst those who participated in Kuwait to an end. Its aim, however, is not to terminate discussions, but rather to provoke and stimulate them.