South Africa’s official matric pass rate is 87.3%

South Africa’s official matric pass rate for 2024 is 87.3%, an increase from the 82.9% pass rate of 2023.

Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube announced the results at a briefing at the Mosaïek Church in Randburg on Monday, 13 January 2025.

More than 615,000 of the roughly 700,000 public school learners who wrote the 2024 matric exams passed.

The Class of 2024 also racked up the highest number of candidates qualifying to study for a Bachelor’s degree.

“I am pleased to announce that in the class of 2024, nearly half of our learners who wrote the exams received a Bachelor pass,” said Gwarube.

“47.8% of our candidates qualified for admission to Bachelor studies. This is a 6.9 percentage point increase from last year.”

The matric pass rates also improved in all nine provinces. The breakdown per province is as follows:

• Free State — 91.0%
• Gauteng — 88.4%
• KZN — 89.5%
• North West — 87.5%
• Western Cape — 86.6%
• Eastern Cape — 85.0%
• Limpopo — 85.1%
• Mpumalanga — 84.9%
• Northern Cape — 84.2%

Quality assurance body Umalusi reported earlier on Monday that 1,060,852 students wrote the 2024 matric exams this year.

The National Senior Certificate (NSC) accounted for 832,993 learners.

These 832,993 learners are distributed across schools falling under the Department of Basic Education (DBE), Independent Examinations Board (IEB), and South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI).

“We have seen the highest rate of learners enrolled for Grade 12 in 2024 writing the NSC exams since the start of Covid-19,” said Minister Gwarube.

The Class of 2024 was at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

“The matric class of 2024, who are the reason for our gathering today, were in Grade 8. They just entered secondary education at the time when this crisis took place,” noted Deputy Minister Reginah Mhaule.

In its statement, Umalusi also noted concerns relating to the writing of the final exams, including cases of malpractice and cheating.

“There has been a reduction in the number of reported cases of group copying in the DBE; that is, the number decreased from 945 in 2023 to 407 in 2024,” said Umalusi CEO Mafu Rakometsi.

“Umalusi remains seriously concerned that KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga are once again at the top of the list with 195 and 74 implicated candidates, respectively.”