Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga on Wednesday evening announced the matric pass rate for the class of 2019 – 81.3%.

However, Nomsa Marchesi, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of basic education said that the “real” matric pass rate, is much lower, at only 38.9%.

In 2017, a total of 1 052 080 learners were enrolled in grade 10, yet only 409 906 learners eventually passed matric last year. This means only 38.9% of grade 10 learners actually wrote and passed matric, the shadow minister said.

“This is for the most part due to an extraordinarily high drop-out rate, which means that hundreds of thousands of learners are denied the chance to write matric, let alone pass it.

“This is an indication of a dismally failing system, not a functional and successful one,” Marchesi said.

The education lead said that the DA-led Western Cape is the province with the lowest drop-out rate (33.4%) and therefore the highest real pass rate, standing at 54.8%.

Real pass rates of each province

The DA said that the real national pass rate for 2018 was 37.6%. The real pass rate of 2019 is, therefore, an improvement of a mere 1.3%, Marchesi said.

“For years now the DBE punts the national pass rate because it shifts the focus from their perpetual failures as an ANC government.

“The slow poison of drop-out rates between grades 10 and 12 is eating away at the future of the youth of this country.

“Since 2015, which saw the highest number of pupils who sat to write their matric exam, there has been a steady decline each year. This should be a real and urgent concern for the DBE,” the education lead said.

Read: Here are South Africa’s matric results for 2019