The Class of 2025 did exceptionally well, achieving a pass rate of 88% in the National Senior Certificate, representing an increase of 0.7 percentage points from 2024. More than 900 000 full-time and part-time candidates wrote the matric exam at more than 6 000 examination centres around the country.
But behind this success lurks a disturbing trend. Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube has raised concerns over data showing that female pupils are consistently outperforming boys and now significantly outnumber them in matric classrooms.
Girls make up 56% of the matric cohort, compared to boys at 44% – a gap that reflects stronger protections for the girl child but also highlights a troubling trend of boys dropping out of the schooling system.
Policy reforms that in the past removed pregnant girls from the classroom have been scrapped, allowing many to return to school once they have given birth, thus increasing girl pupil retention. On the contrary, boys were less likely to re-enter the system once they dropped out. This has resulted in their under-representation not only in matric cohorts but also in second-chance pathways, the department noted.
The story of the Class of 2025 offers important insights into where the system is losing pupils. In 2014, about 1.2 million children entered Grade 1. By the time this cohort reached Grade 10 in 2023, numbers had declined by only about 4%. This points to strong retention in the early and middle years of schooling.
The real pressure point, however, comes later. Between Grades 10 and 12, dropout and repetition rates rise sharply. Nationally, only about 84% of pupils progress from Grade 10 to Grade 11. And just 78% progress from Grade 11 to Grade 12. By 2025, the full-time Grade 12 cohort had shrunk to about 778 000 pupils.
But could schools be pushing out boys to boost pass rates?
Education experts caution that where lower retention coincides with higher performance, the pattern must be interrogated carefully. There is growing concern that some pupils, disproportionately boys, may be discouraged or diverted into non-academic tracks. Or they may be pushed out of gateway subjects in an effort to boost pass rates.
While we should naturally applaud the increased retention of girls, we should equally be concerned about the higher dropout rates of male pupils. What happens to young men when they drop out of school? A matric certificate by itself, whilst a milestone to be celebrated, is not an adequate qualification by itself to prepare youngsters to fully participate in an economy where 36.9% of active adults remain unemployed.
In this environment, the odds are heavily stacked against those who leave school without having completed Grade 12. They exit poorly educated, without any means to progress into tertiary education or even enter lower paying jobs where matric is often the minimum qualification required.
The future of the boy child without a matric certificate is dire.
