Congratulations to the matric class of 2025. Your grit and determination have yielded the results you have worked so hard for, and we wish you the best in all your future endeavours.
When presenting the technical report for the matric class of 2025, basic education director-general Mathanzima Mweli likened the resilience of the cohort to the baobab tree, citing its ability to grow in and “withstand adverse conditions” — something the class of 2025 managed to do.
While the resilience demonstrated by pupils and teachers, especially those in severely under-resourced schools, is nothing short of inspiring, the context in which this level of resilience is cultivated is undesirable.
These pupils and teachers are forced to develop resilience because they learn and teach in poor school conditions. This is an unfair expectation.
The 88% national pass rate represents a slight improvement, up 0.7% from the 87.3% national pass rate achieved by the matric class of 2024.
The department of basic education must work to create a conducive learning environment by properly funding our public schools, improving spending efficiency, fixing our schools, safeguarding social protection for vulnerable children and strengthening foundational learning
Harsh realities
It is important that we do not look at the pass rate in isolation and mistake it as the full reflection of the overall health of our education system.
The national pass rate should not be used to conceal the harsh realities of schooling in SA, which continues to disproportionately affect black, poor, township and rural pupils and pupils with disabilities.
The overall throughput rate also remains a cause for concern. It is estimated that only 59% of those who started Grade 2, 10 years ago, made it to matric in 2025.
In 2015, 1,110,200 pupils were enrolled in Grade 2, while 656,415 pupils achieved matric in 2025. Recent studies have shown that rural areas experience significantly higher dropout rates compared with urban areas, with pupils in later grades (Grades 10 to 12) more affected — a phenomenon the minister alluded to in her official address.
For a tree like the baobab to grow and flourish, it requires a strong foundation. The minister rightly acknowledged the importance of foundational learning in her reference, but education departments cannot continue to neglect other critical elements that pupils need to thrive.
The department of basic education must work to create a conducive learning environment by properly funding our public schools, improving spending efficiency, fixing our schools, safeguarding social protection for vulnerable children and strengthening foundational learning.
By her own admission, the minister of basic education, Siviwe Gwarube, rightly highlighted the severe consequences of years of austerity measures and fiscal consolidation pressures on the education system.
To help improve performance in later years, especially in gateway subjects such as mathematics and physical sciences, the government must strengthen foundational learning, ensuring pupils master foundational skills such as numeracy and literacy from an early age
Budget cuts have devastating consequences for pupils and teachers, contributing to poor performance and a concerning dropout rate, especially in rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape, which recorded the lowest pass rate at 84.17%. Provincial education departments must also plan and spend efficiently to ensure the effective delivery of quality education.
Increased funding and enhanced spending efficiency alone, however, cannot fix our public schools. To achieve a high-quality education system, we have to fix every public school in this country.
The department of basic education and provincial education departments must work harder to address systemic issues facing pupils and teachers in our schools, namely overcrowding; insufficient and unsafe infrastructure; teacher shortages; disruptions to the provisioning of core municipal services such as water and electricity; unaffordable, unreliable and unsafe scholar transport; poor provisioning of nutritious meals through the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP); unsafe schools; poor provisioning of psychosocial support services; and discriminatory and unfair school admissions-related practices.
The decline in the pass rate of social grant beneficiaries, from 86.06% in 2024 to 77.70% in 2025, illustrates the deep inequality in our public education system.
The reality is that the socioeconomic issues faced by vulnerable pupils in the system have a direct correlation to how well they perform in school. The departments of basic education and of social development must do more to ensure that the barriers to accessing social protections by vulnerable pupils in the system are erased.
To help improve performance in later years, especially in gateway subjects such as mathematics and physical sciences, the government must strengthen foundational learning, ensuring pupils master foundational skills such as numeracy and literacy from an early age.
If the government is to fulfil its legal and moral obligation of ensuring equal access to quality education, it must address systemic inequalities, which continue to prevent the poor and vulnerable from attending school and from receiving a quality learning experience throughout their schooling career.
Every pupil deserves an equal chance in a just and equitable system that respects their right to a quality education and that helps them thrive, empowering their future.
- Beynon is the systems efficiency researcher at Equal Education, while Sishi-Wigzell is head of communications.
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