As thousands of young people receive their matric results, families beam with pride. There are smiles, hugs and celebrations. But once the excitement settles, a harder question arrives: what future are these young people walking into?
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube this week announced that the Class of 2025 had achieved an 88% pass rate – the highest in South Africa’s history. Ululation and song greeted the news, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, which topped the provincial charts at 90.66%. On the surface, this looks like triumph.
Scratch beneath the record figure, though, and the arithmetic tells a sobering story. The minister’s 88% is calculated on the department of basic education’s full-time pupils. But although the number of pupils who wrote the exams was the highest yet – just over 900 000 – only 745 000 were full-time pupils.
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Of these, 656 000 acquired the National Senior Certificate, which drops the pass rate to about 80%. This discrepancy between the official pass rate and the raw percentage mirrors another crisis: youth unemployment. Just days before the matric results, Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe claimed young people are “lazy” and don’t want to look for work.
That comment angered many youth – and rightly so. It is not true.
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