{"id":879276,"date":"2026-10-12T10:35:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=879276"},"modified":"2026-10-12T10:35:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:35:06","slug":"matric-pass-rate-warning-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/879276\/matric-pass-rate-warning-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Matric pass rate warning for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, has warned schools against obsessing over matric pass rates, saying that by doing so, they are doing untold damage to the country’s skills pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because focus on the pass rate incentivises the wrong behaviour, such as holding weaker learners back, pushing subjects like Mathematics Literacy, just to bolster pass figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that the department is moving towards different metrics to gauge success beyond the pass rate, focusing on distinctions, literacy, retention rates, and participation in key gateway subjects like maths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gwarube’s warning came in her address on the full readiness for the upcoming 2026 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations in South Africa, which will commence on 13 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am proud to announce that the Department of Basic Education and the class of 2026 are ready for the 2026 National Senior Certificate examinations,” Gwarube said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her speech, Gwarube highlighted a record number of registrations of nearly one million candidates, while shifting performance evaluations from a strict focus on pass rates to a broader basket of quality indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She warned against a “collective obsession with the matric pass rate,” highlighting the perverse incentives and compromised quality of education that result from reducing the basic education system to a single percentage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This obsession has had unintended consequences and has incentivised the wrong kinds of behaviour,” she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She highlighted several damaging practices driven by competition among provinces, districts, and schools to inflate their matric pass rate figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She explained that this competition and obsession with the pass rate have led to an increased culling of weaker learners, preventing lower-performing learners from being promoted into matric to artificially improve the pass rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She highlighted the rise of gatekeeping to increase the pass rate, which entails holding back grade 11 learners who should have been promoted to matric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also noted that the schools, provinces and districts had been steering the learners away from gateway subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that learners were encouraged to take Maths Literacy rather than Maths to maximise the number of candidates who have passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister warned that this obsession has harmed South Africa’s capacity to build essential skills in STEM, Accounting, and Economic Sciences, which are important for economic competitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This must change; if our country is to be economically competitive, it needs deep and meaningful skills in STEM and other gateway subjects,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to these factors, the Minister announced that provincial performance will now be evaluated through a broader basket of quality indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes the number of Bachelor passes, retention rates, distinctions, and participation in key gateway subjects such as Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Accounting and Economics, amongst others, rather than just the pass rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This approach will allow provinces to benchmark performance more meaningfully and identify areas requiring intervention,” said Gwarube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She explained that the new focus will shift away from the narrow view of whether learners have passed and instead focus on whether provinces are improving literacy, numeracy, retention, and participation in gateway subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest cohort to take the NSC exams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Basic Education Minister, Siviwe Gwarube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Minister highlighted that the class of 2026 is the largest full-time cohort of learners to sit the NSC examinations to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 815,051 matric candidates have been registered to write the October\/November 2026 exams, representing a major increase of 48,508 from 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, a further 147,781 part-time candidates looking to improve their previous results have registered for this year’s NSC exams. This is an increase of 10,763 from 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings the total number of registered candidates for the 2026 NSC Exams to 962,832.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The growth in full-time registration is an indication that learners are staying in school, that they are finishing matric in good time, and, as the results of last year show, more and more are being successful in their first attempt at the NSC Matric Exams,” said Gwarube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gwarube explained that this increase shows a maturing system on the rise, giving “near-universal” access to education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also highlighted the scale of responsibility present for South Africa and its education practitioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Every candidate must be accounted for, every examination venue must be prepared, and every question paper must reach the correct candidate, in the correct venue, and it must reach them securely and on time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She called for discipline, coordination, and close oversight from the national department and all provincial education departments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Minister of Basic Education has warned South Africa not to obsess over the matric pass rate, as the NSC exams commence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":812806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2109563735526277449","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2234514934035572","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18136028758628705","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22434,24488],"class_list":["post-879276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-basic-education-minister-siviwe-gwarube","tag-national-senior-certificate-nsc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879276"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879335,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879276\/revisions\/879335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}