Cyril Ramaphosa celebrates matric pass rate while 80% of grade 4 learners can’t read for meaning

President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrated the fact that South Africa saw the highest matric pass rate in its history in 2025 at 88%. 

However, Ramaphosa failed to acknowledge that the quality of the education matrics are receiving has, on average, deteriorated and that many will not be able to find a job in the South African economy. 

While a greater percentage of matrics passed their final exams, there is also a greater number who will not be equipped with the skills that are demanded by a modern economy. 

This is a result of the government focusing intensely on expanding access to education, which is a noble goal, while not focusing enough on the quality of that education. 

Efficient Group chief economist Daiwe Roodt said that South Africa simply does not have a workforce that is properly equipped for working in its economy. 

Roodt’s comments came in response to President Ramaphosa celebrating the record-high matric pass rate in 2025 during his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA). 

“Last year saw the highest matric pass rate in our history, with more than two-thirds of all bachelor’s passes coming from schools in the most disadvantaged communities,” Ramaphosa said. 

“We congratulate the matric class of 2025, which achieved an 88% pass rate. This is the highest pass rate in our history, reflecting both the commitment of these learners and the interventions we have made to improve learning and teaching in schools.”

Roodt said that while this is true and a good outcome, it masks the fact that many of these matrics received low-quality education. 

“The President congratulated the matrics for a very high pass rate, which is true. But, the reality is that the quality of South Africa’s education is not only bad, but it is also quite often among the worst in the world,” Roodt said. 

“We simply do not have a workforce that is properly trained for a modern economy.” 

This can be seen in the effects down the line, with the lion’s share of unemployed South Africans never having had a job in the first place. 

The Reserve Bank’s analysis of the latest unemployment data showed that a large share of the increase in joblessness has been driven by new entrants to the labour market who could not find jobs. 

This is primarily young adults coming out of university or school who cannot enter the formal economy due to a lack of growth. These individuals risk not participating in South Africa’s economy or having a stake in the wealth it generates.

The total number of officially unemployed persons in the second quarter of 2025 primarily comprised new entrants to the labour market (43.2%), followed by job losers (25.8%) and persons who last worked five years ago (24.9%), the Reserve Bank said. 

Low-quality education

While South Africa’s education outcomes, according to pass rates, are improving, the quality of its education is heading in the opposite direction. 

Coronation’s economics unit recently outlined some of the root causes of South Africa’s unemployment crisis, with it pointing much of the blame towards a stagnant economy and poor education. 

The asset manager explained that South Africa has failed to develop human capital, resulting in the country’s workforce becoming steadily less productive over time – limiting economic growth and the economy’s ability to absorb new workers. 

This is despite the fact that education absorbs roughly 6% of South Africa’s annual GDP and 20% of all government spending. This places South Africa among the world’s highest spenders on education relative to income. 

South Africa, for all its spending on education, has among the worst outcomes among its upper-to-middle-income country peers, Coronation said. 

Recent international assessments show that more than 80% of Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning and in 47% of secondary schools, no child reached the intermediate maths benchmark. 

Adjusted for quality, a South African child effectively receives the equivalent of about five years of learning after nine years of schooling, Coronation said. 

Coronation’s analysis points to a significant deterioration in the quality of education, while access to education has increased in South Africa. 

Former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel noted something similar when outlining how the government has failed to meaningfully transform education in South Africa. 

“It is a huge achievement that 80% of school children in South Africa are at no-fee schools. But no fees frequently also means no maths, no science, and no discipline,” Manuel said. 

“And so this notion of transforming the education system is a curious thing that we have not been able to master in South Africa.” 

Manuel said the failure to transform South Africa’s education system has resulted in the majority of the country having the same problems it faced 60 years ago. 

“Bantu education was built in the 1950s without mathematics. That was in 1953, and in 2025, the mathematics is still not there,” Manuel said. 

“You have taken quantitative skills out of a generation of learners and successive generations of teachers, and so it is still not there.”