ActionSA congratulates the Class of 2025 on completing their National Senior Certificate under difficult circumstances and acknowledges the commitment of teachers and families who supported them. Any learner who perseveres to the end of matric deserves recognition.
However, headline pass rates alone do not reflect the true performance of South Africa’s basic education system. While government celebrates an official matric pass rate of 88%, ActionSA’s analysis shows that the “real” matric pass rate tells a far more sobering story. Using the accepted cohort methodology – measuring how many learners passed matric relative to the 1.14 million learners who entered Grade 10 in 2023 – the effective completion rate falls to 57.7%.
Despite the Basic Education Minister’s triumphal rhetoric, nearly half of the learners who started the final phase of schooling did not successfully complete matric.
This gap is not an abstraction. It reflects a system that continues to lose learners through dropout, repetition, and disengagement long before they ever reach the examination hall. It is a system where success is defined by shrinking the denominator rather than improving outcomes, and where political comfort is prioritised over honest measurement and reform.
The crisis in basic education is also visible in the conditions under which many learners are expected to study. Just days ago, a six-year-old girl in Nkuzana village, Limpopo, lost her life after falling into a pit toilet, despite such toilets being banned by law since 2013. According to a parliamentary reply from late last year, around 590 schools still rely on pit toilets, more than a decade after government committed to their eradication. A system that cannot guarantee basic safety and dignity for learners cannot credibly claim success based on pass percentages alone.
ActionSA has been consistent and unapologetic about what real education reform requires. We have called for honest reporting of matric outcomes against full learner cohorts, the abolition of the 30% pass mark in favour of meaningful minimum standards, and structured academic support for learners
who fall short. We believe accountability must be rebuilt across the entire school ecosystem, including the reintroduction of Annual National Assessments and transparent school-level performance data.
South Africa also needs an education system fit for a modern economy.
ActionSA advocates for a dual-stream education model from Grade 10, offering learners a genuine choice between academic and vocational pathways, aligned to the skills our economy urgently needs.
Not every learner should be forced into a single academic track designed for another era.
Our education system is not failing by accident. It is failing because year after year, leaders choose pass-rate games over genuine reform and political comfort over courage. ActionSA refuses to participate in this national self-deception. We stand for higher standards, honest measurement, safe schools, empowered teachers, and an education system that prepares young South Africans not merely to pass, but to thrive.
57.7% Real Matric Pass Rate: Results Mask a School System That Is Still Failing Too Many Learners
ActionSA congratulates the Class of 2025 on completing their National Senior Certificate under difficult circumstances and acknowledges the commitment of teachers and families who supported them. Any learner who perseveres to the end of matric deserves recognition.
However, headline pass rates alone do not reflect the true performance of South Africa’s basic education system. While government celebrates an official matric pass rate of 88%, ActionSA’s analysis shows that the “real” matric pass rate tells a far more sobering story. Using the accepted cohort methodology – measuring how many learners passed matric relative to the 1.14 million learners who entered Grade 10 in 2023 – the effective completion rate falls to 57.7%.
Despite the Basic Education Minister’s triumphal rhetoric, nearly half of the learners who started the final phase of schooling did not successfully complete matric.
This gap is not an abstraction. It reflects a system that continues to lose learners through dropout, repetition, and disengagement long before they ever reach the examination hall. It is a system where success is defined by shrinking the denominator rather than improving outcomes, and where political comfort is prioritised over honest measurement and reform.
The crisis in basic education is also visible in the conditions under which many learners are expected to study. Just days ago, a six-year-old girl in Nkuzana village, Limpopo, lost her life after falling into a pit toilet, despite such toilets being banned by law since 2013. According to a parliamentary reply from late last year, around 590 schools still rely on pit toilets, more than a decade after government committed to their eradication. A system that cannot guarantee basic safety and dignity for learners cannot credibly claim success based on pass percentages alone.
ActionSA has been consistent and unapologetic about what real education reform requires. We have called for honest reporting of matric outcomes against full learner cohorts, the abolition of the 30% pass mark in favour of meaningful minimum standards, and structured academic support for learners
who fall short. We believe accountability must be rebuilt across the entire school ecosystem, including the reintroduction of Annual National Assessments and transparent school-level performance data.
South Africa also needs an education system fit for a modern economy.
ActionSA advocates for a dual-stream education model from Grade 10, offering learners a genuine choice between academic and vocational pathways, aligned to the skills our economy urgently needs.
Not every learner should be forced into a single academic track designed for another era.
Our education system is not failing by accident. It is failing because year after year, leaders choose pass-rate games over genuine reform and political comfort over courage. ActionSA refuses to participate in this national self-deception. We stand for higher standards, honest measurement, safe schools, empowered teachers, and an education system that prepares young South Africans not merely to pass, but to thrive.