SA matrics shine with highest national pass rate yet of 87.3%

The matric class of 2024 has achieved an 87.3% pass rate – surpassing the 82.9% recorded in 2023. This is an improvement of 4.4 percentage points.

“This is the highest pass rate in our country and it should be a moment of great pride,” said Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube, who announced the results in Johannesburg on Monday, 13 January 2025.

Every province improved on its performance from 2023, and every province achieved above an 84% pass rate, said Gwarube. Free State is the best-performing province, with a pass rate of 91%, an increase from 89% in 2023.

The Free State was followed by:

• KwaZulu-Natal, which achieved an 89.5% pass rate, an increase  of 3.1% over 2023 (86.4% in 2023);


• Gauteng, which recorded an 88.4% pass rate, an increase of 3% over 2023 (85.4% in 2023);


• North West, which attained an 87.5% pass rate, an increase of 5.9% over 2023 (81.6% in 2023);


• Western Cape, which achieved an 86.7% pass rate, an increase of 5.2% over 2023 (81.5% in 2023);


• Limpopo, which achieved an 85.01% pass rate, an increase of 5.51% over 2023 (79.5%);


• Eastern Cape with an 84.98% pass rate, an increase of 3.58% from  2023 (81.4%);


• Mpumalanga, which achieved an 84.99% pass rate, a 7.99% increase over 2023; and


• Northern Cape, which recorded an 84.2% pass rate, an 8.3% increase over 2023 – the most improved province.

“The matric class of 2024 faced many challenges, from the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted their learning, to the new budget pressures being felt by various departments in schools, to social ills such as gangsterism,” she said.

Nearly half the learners who wrote the NSC exams received a bachelor’s pass, with 47.8% of matric candidates qualified for admission to bachelor degree studies, an increase from 2023 when 40.9% of learners received this.

Kwazulu-Natal received 84,470 bachelor’s passes, followed by Gauteng with 66,979 and the Eastern Cape with 45,662. Gwarube said this was a critical benchmark for higher education and training.

More than 390,000 distinctions were attained. Gwarube said KwaZulu-Natal was the leading province with 10.8%, followed by the Western Cape at 6.3% and Gauteng at 5.3%.

A total of 724,311 candidates entered for the exam and 705,291 wrote the exams. A total of 19,020 or 2.63% of the candidates were absent from the exams.

Education has never been better – director-general

Department of Basic Education Director-General Hubert Mathanzima Mweli said during the technical briefing that the country had never appeared this healthy in the history of education.

“We have never experienced this in our lifetime. Out of 75 districts, 73 had a pass of 80% and above. The lowest-performing district obtained 78%,” he said.

Mweli said the class of 2024 was unique and cautioned about comparing this class with previous classes because it had not been exactly the same experience. He said bachelor passes had been on an uninterrupted upward trajectory since 2014. The class of 2024 obtained 47.8% bachelor’s, an increase from last year's 40.9%.

The class of 2024 received extraordinary learner support programmes, he said, and there had been an increase in the number of learners who benefited from extra tuition. Mweli said the learner support programmes inherited the systems which had been developed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“They received extraordinary and unprecedented learner support programmes. They benefited from what was developed from those who went to school in Grade 12 at the height of Covid-19 in 2020, where we continue to plug in the gaps that they experienced as a result of the disruptions during Covid,” he said.

Mweli said there had been an improvement in the throughput rate and cautioned that the pass rate was not the same as throughput. A pass rate is the number of learners who have been successful in a particular exam, while throughput rate is the number of learners who enter the system against the number of learners who exit the system. A total of 1.2 million pupils enrolled in Grade 1 in 2013, and 740,876 came through to Grade 12.

Concerns 

The South African throughput rate stands at 64%, which Mweli says is a healthy figure because middle-income countries are expected to be around 60%.

“While we acknowledge that more can be done to keep learners from falling out of the schooling system, that is not our major problem. Our major problem is the failure and repetition rate. It is too high compared to other countries. We’re looking to improve our throughput rate even further, but we appreciate that there is a geometric improvement,” he said.

The department is concerned about BSM subjects – business studies, accounting and economics. The department is equally concerned about the enrolment in mathematics, which saw a decline of 12,000, the highest in recent years.

Mweli said President Cyril Ramaphosa had given the department a clear instruction to find ways to improve enrolment in technical subjects and maths.

“We need more plumbers. We need more electricians to come and create jobs … as a country, this is the direction that we should go,” he said.

Gaps between schools decreasing

Mweli said the gap was closing between fee-paying schools and no-fee schools, with 85.8% of pupils in no-fee schools passing and a 90.3% pass rate in fee-paying schools.

In 52 subjects, candidates’ raw marks were accepted. In 13 subjects, marks were adjusted downwards and in two subjects, marks were adjusted upwards.

“Standardisation is important for the health of the system to create that balance. At times, papers can become too difficult, sometimes they become too easy, and so that’s the reality, that’s what standardisation is about. We sometimes don’t like the outcomes, but we respect them because the final decision is for quality assurance,” said Mweli.

Gwarube said pupils from quintiles 1 to 3 schools, which typically served the poorest communities, had made significant gains, reflecting the success of initiatives, such as the National School Nutrition Programme. Roughly 67% of all bachelor passes came from quintile 1 to quintile 3 schools.

Provincial and district results

Mweli said the Western Cape achieved the highest pass rate in mathematics, at 78%, followed by North West at 73.9%, and the Free State at 73.2%.

Mweli said Limpopo led the pack in mathematics participation with 44.1%, followed by the Eastern Cape at 42.9% and Mpumalanga at 40.7%.

Gwarube said Johannesburg West education district was the best-performing district with a pass rate of 97%, followed by the Fezile Dabi education district in the Free State, achieving a 93.5% pass rate, and then the Umkhanyakude education district in KwaZulu-Natal in third position with 92.8%.

Gwarube reiterated the credibility and integrity of the results — as pronounced by the education quality assurance body Umalusi earlier on Monday.

Umalusi confirmed that no systemic irregularities had been found in the NSC exams and Professor Yunus Ballim, Chairperson of Umalusi’s council, gave the go-ahead for the publication of results from the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute, Independent Examinations Board (IEB), and the DBE. He confirmed that no significant irregularities were reported that could have affected the credibility of the exams.

However, Umalusi raised concerns over the nearly 8% absenteeism rate among students registered for exams administered by the DBE.

Of the 880,209 candidates registered for the exams under the department, only 810,900 sat for their papers, leaving 69,309 candidates — about 7.9% — absent. Umalusi noted that many of these absentees had been prevented from writing their exams.

While the number of cheating cases detected in the 2024 NSC exams administered by the Department of Basic Education was lower than in 2023, Umalusi CEO Dr Mafu Rakometsi expressed concern that KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga once again topped the list for exam cheating.

Although the number of reported cheating incidents decreased from 945 in 2023 to 407 in 2024, KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 195 cases and Mpumalanga for 74. DM