Back to School Blues
Read the IOL article here: The scary numbers behind South Africa’s matric pass rate (iol.co.za)
South African education system not delivering the results required
This January, more than 15 million children returned to school, making the parents who have been entertaining them for many weeks very happy, but is the economy seeing the benefit of an educated workforce? Education is an essential contributor towards South Africa’s economic growth, but according to research from Eighty20, South Africa’s leading consumer analytics and research business, only 48 of every 100 learners that start grade one end up passing matric.
The number of students entering primary school has been relatively stable since 2016, with 2023 introducing 1.35 million first time learners. The sad reality of South African education is that too few of the 15.3 million children currently in Grades 0 to 12 will end up with gainful employment, or a matric pass rate for that matter.
Education is the highest budgeted department for 2023/4 at R309.5 Million (roughly 14% of the total budget), yet South Africa seems to be falling short in terms of keeping its population in the schooling and tertiary education system.
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Of the more than a million children who start school every year, in 2023 only 58 out of 100 made it to matric, with 48 passing. Only 19 out of 100 will proceed to any sort of tertiary education.
In 2022, 725,003 students wrote matric with 580,555 passing. This equated to a pass rate of 80.1%, up 3.7% from the previous year. 2023 showed a further 2.8% improvement to an 82.9% pass rate with 691,173 writing and 572,983 passing. The Free State continued to be the top performing province at 89% with encouraging improvements for some of the historically poorly performing provinces of KZN (86.4%), Eastern Cape (81.4%) and Limpopo (79.5%).
It is important though to look at the matric pass rates in light of drop-out rates, as despite a better pass rate fewer students actually made their way through the schooling system in 2023. In 2022 the drop-out rate was 31.8% (meaning 31.8% of those entering grade 10 in 2020 did not end up writing matric in 2022). For 2023, the drop-out rate increased significantly to 36.1%.
In comparison to our BRICS counterparts, the Russian Federation scores the highest amongst the BRICS countries for higher education and training, ranking 47th out of 148 countries. China (70th) and Brazil (71st) are ahead of South Africa which is 89th in the world, and 4th in Africa, edging out India (91st).
Beyond matriculation
While a matric certificate does make you more employable, tertiary education is needed to significantly improve one’s life prospects. Fewer than half of South Africans with matric are employed, compared to 75% with a university degree (80% with a higher degree).
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Of the 1.08 million that were in Grade 10 in 2021, 64% wrote their matric examinations in 2023. Of those writing matric, 38% wrote maths (and 64% passed). This means that just 1 in 7 ended up with a matric pass in maths.
Passing maths is a prerequisite for studying to become an engineer, nurse or tech specialist, who are not only the fundamental building blocks of a functioning society, but they earn more as well. The average salary of someone who graduated with a degree not requiring maths as a prerequisite is approximately R350 000. For those where it is a prerequisite, it is R450 000, a noteworthy 30% more.
“With the unemployment rate for the 10.2 million people aged 15 – 24 years old sitting at 58%, South Africa’s youth unemployment is a huge risk for our country’s future. One of the main reasons for high unemployment is the gap between skills and experience required by employers. The best way to address this is through education, in particular better maths, science and technology,” concludes Andrew Fulton, Director at Eighty20.