Beyond Matric results: a hollow victory masking education crisis
The seeming innocuous question asked by Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, on the eve of the matric results for 2024 revealed her deep concern as a teacher, a parent of society. Buried in the two-minute question were critical analysis of South Africa's education system AND reveals a deepening crisis beyond matric results, highlighting racial disparities and systemic failures in post-school education.
Last week, on the eve of the National Senior Certificate results and amid the usual disinformation about their meaning, I laid the groundwork for their interpretation, particularly in the context of South Africa’s deepening human resource crisis. While the numbers of candidates and their results are verifiable, the policy focus makes the annual spectacle frustrating. Successful students must be congratulated and encouraged, while those who did not pass need both guidance and targeted remedial interventions through policy actions.
What frustrates is the avoidance of the policy implications of South Africa’s poor performance in basic and higher education, mirrored in racially polarised outcomes in education, training, and the labour market. This ritualised spectacle, devoid of serious plans, targets, or actions, reduces the government to a stage of comedy. A glance at Statistics South Africa’s 2023 General Household Survey reveals the tragedy of this annual farce, 30 years into democracy.
Prof Phakeng posted the following:
“Soon the celebration of matric results will fade for some or even turn sour for others as many students discover that they have not been accepted into their post-school institution of choice. Very sad! Of course, I am neither a historian nor a prophet; I am a scientist. While historians may be described as prophets looking backwards, scientists analyse data to predict future events. Scientists use hypotheses, theories, and models to make predictions that are logical consequences of their ideas. Unlike prophecies and history, predictions by scientists can be evaluated immediately, and scientists themselves can overturn their own ideas. #matricresults2024,” Phakeng said.
She also shared a video posing a potent question to President Cyril Ramaphosa on the impact of post-matric education and training. While the visible rise in Black graduates is noteworthy, they face seismic intellectual infanticide, plateauing prematurely—an unresolved powder keg poised to explode.
Phakeng acknowledged the increase in Black university students, an obvious fact given that 80% of the population is Black African. However, she highlighted the absence of a post-school plan, which leaves many of South Africa’s children outside the human resource development system.
The President ironically went straight for the pin to detonate the time bomb Phakeng was asking about. The answer misinterpreted the facts and failed to respond to the crisis she flagged. Ramaphosa celebrated South Africa’s exceptionalism in funding 750 000 post-school education participants and having 1.4 million participants overall. Yet his analysis rested on absolute numbers - the quantity - lacking relational and comparative context or a clear impact trajectory of the gaping tragedy. This is no plan at all.
In 2016, while Statistician-General, I presented a graphic at a South African Universities conference in Durban under the title Higher Education Today: Crises, Contestations, and Contemplations. Nick Spaul of Stellenbosch University had presented absolute numbers, celebrated by the government as progress. However, The Statistician General's evidence showed this “victory” was pyrrhic. For each Black African graduate, there were 4.2 White graduates—a stark indicator of inequality.
Achieving parity requires 230 000 annual Black African graduates instead of 48 000, a student roll of 7 million instead of 1.7 million, and full funding by taxpayers. This is essential for a skilled workforce comprising 60% of the population, akin to South Korea’s demographic dividend, currently enjoyed only by White South Africans. Black Africans remain stuck at 15%.
An analysis of the 2023 Statistics South Africa General Household Survey report shows that Black Africans have plateaued in both post-basic education outcomes and matric throughput. The best hopes cannot overcome a bottleneck of 900 000 children annually failing to exit the basic education system with a meaningful pass—a relentless cycle fuelling a terminal crisis. This backlog feeds the time bomb Phakeng warned of, making the annual celebration tragically hollow. This is the state of South African education and the dismal future our youth are thrust into.
To understand this crisis, consider two indicators: progression ratios by race into higher education and the skilled workforce’s racial composition. In 2023, only 6.47% of Black Africans and 5.13% of Coloureds aged 20 were in university, compared to 69% of Indians and 50.19% of Whites. Among the skilled workforce aged 25–34, Whites stand at 61%, Indians at 59%, Coloureds at 27%, and Black Africans at 14%.
Celebrating a diminished denominator—1.2 million children entering Grade 1, reduced to 740 000 matriculants and only 300 000 decent passes—is futile. Yet the government clings to this minimalist narrative, ignoring the ticking time bomb it conceals.
South Africa lacks a bureaucracy capable of heavy lifting. We are too far behind the needed inflection point to turn the tide. The comical charade of matric results, perpetuated by the new Minister of Education, has even drawn criticism from her DA constituency. Perhaps this signals a political awakening—or mere posturing ahead of the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits, and a distinguished alumnus of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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