Isolation, lack of connection and/or belonging, difficulty maintaining engagement and motivation for learning are common complaints for students separated from teaching and support staff in distance education. Using a mixed-methods approach, this article utilises dimensions of student engagement: cognitive, emotional and social behaviour to argue on student-teachers' engagement in mathematics learning for teaching in the Open Distance e-Learning (ODeL) context. A survey was administered to 654 students in an institution registered for Postgraduate Certificate in Education mathematics didactics course. Furthermore, five of the students were interviewed using emails and audio-recorded telephone calls. Findings reveal that student-teachers sometimes feel hopeless due to connectivity and data issues, which then impacts their time to engage with mathematics content. They also revealed that when they engage in discussion forums, they enjoy learning mathematics with their peers. It was also revealed that feedback on their assignments guides them on the correctness of their solutions as they otherwise would not have been able to do this on their own. It is recommended that further work be done to establish how cognitive engagement with mathematics can be positively impacted in an ODeL context.