Fewer than half of the learners who were in Grade 10 in 2023 reached Grade 12 by 2025, highlighting a persistent dropout crisis that education organisations say cannot be blamed on parents alone, but is also driven by overcrowded classrooms, inequality and inadequate academic support.
The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) Examination Report found that only 49% of the cohort progressed to Grade 12 within two years.
The findings come as 962 832 candidates, the largest matric class to date, are writing their final examinations.
Of the learners who left the schooling system, about 80% were over-age for their grade, and 60% were boys.
The report noted that the proportion of young people completing 12 years of education had increased from 45% in 2008 to 65% in 2024, largely because fewer learners were dropping out between Grades 9 and 11.
However, about one in three young people still leave school without a qualification.
The DBE also cautioned against measuring the education system solely through the conventional matric pass rate, noting that about 80 000 additional young people obtain a matric-level qualification annually through part-time examinations, the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.
Limpopo and Mpumalanga, despite their low pass rates, are among the best-performing provinces in retaining learners, while the Eastern Cape continues to lag despite rapid improvement.
During the ANC campaign trail in Khayelitsha on Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was saddened to find young people at home after failing to complete Grade 12 despite the availability of free education.
“Quite a number tell me, I got to Grade 9, I got to Grade 10, I got to Grade 11, and I did not finish Grade 12. That makes me very sad," Ramaphosa said.
He urged parents to ensure their children completed their schooling.
"As parents, we need to make sure that our children finish at the very least Grade 12,” he said.
“In South Africa, we want to pride ourselves on a high literacy rate. We must become a country of educated people, because education is very important in the life of any country. So I become very sad that there is free education in our country, and our children are not finishing, at the very least, Grade 12.”
However, education organisations said learners faced barriers beyond parental responsibility.
Equal Education general secretary Itumeleng Mothlabane said school dropout was closely linked to structural barriers, including poverty, inadequate academic support, overcrowded classrooms and unsafe journeys to school.
“Learners should not have to be exceptionally resilient simply to obtain the education they are constitutionally entitled to receive. The answer is not to blame learners for falling behind. It is to identify where the system is failing them and intervene early.
This means strengthening foundational learning, providing academic and psychosocial support, addressing school infrastructure backlogs, and ensuring that education departments adequately fund and implement the programmes intended to keep learners in school,” she said.
Mothlabane said free education was essential, but free tuition did not automatically mean that education was accessible, saying families continued to face costs such as transport, food, uniforms and stationery.
“The government therefore must move beyond a narrow understanding of school dropout as a failure of parental responsibility. Parents and caregivers must be supported as partners in education, while the state must fulfil its responsibility to provide the conditions necessary for learners to attend school, learn and complete their education,” she said.
The organisation has identified poor academic performance, insufficient remedial support, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, exposure to violence, family responsibilities and the inability to afford school-related costs as some of the reasons learners drop out of school.
Equal Education general secretary Itumeleng Mothlabane said school dropout was closely linked to structural barriers, including poverty, inadequate academic support, overcrowded classrooms and unsafe journeys to school.
“Learners should not have to be exceptionally resilient simply to obtain the education they are constitutionally entitled to receive. The answer is not to blame learners for falling behind. It is to identify where the system is failing them and intervene early," Mothlabane said.
The organisation has identified poor academic performance, insufficient remedial support, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, exposure to violence, family responsibilities and the inability to afford school-related costs as some of the reasons learners drop out of school.
National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) executive director Basil Manuel said overcrowded classrooms made it difficult for teachers to identify and support struggling learners before they fell too far behind.
“Our classes are too big. A slightly weaker child can't cope because no teacher has time for that child. The child falls through the cracks, fails, and in the worst case, drops out,” he said.
Manuel also accused some schools of holding learners back in Grade 10 to protect their matric pass rates.
“In Grade 10, some schools hold children back to protect their 100% pass rate. That's culling. We've been talking about it for years,” he said.
Vanessa Le Roux, founder of Parents for Equal Education South Africa (PEESA), said inequalities between schools further undermined learners' chances of completing their education.
She contrasted former Model C schools, which she said often had smaller classes, with township schools where teachers could face up to 60 pupils.
“...but both of them are defined as public schools, and the department simply just doesn't address this issue,” she said.
Le Roux also highlighted the financial burden on unemployed parents whose children were placed in schools far from home and whose families struggled to afford transport.
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) said it recorded the country's highest learner retention rate in 2025.
Department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said the province's performance meant more learners were staying in school, completing Grade 12 and getting the opportunity to write their examinations.
The WCED's 2026 retention figures will be released alongside the NSC results in January.
South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) spokesperson Nomusa Cembi said the union had recommended appointing truancy officers to help improve attendance, arguing that teachers lacked the time, training and social support to manage the problem.
Cembi said the lack of remedial support was also failing learners who needed more time to progress academically.
"As per the National Policy on Promotion and Progression, learners can repeat a class once per phase. If a learner fails a grade more than once in a phase, they are automatically progressed to the next phase. This was put in place in order to reduce high instances of dropping out and ensure they are not too old for the grade or phase," she said.
siphokazi.vuso@nationalmg.co.za