South Africa’s schooling system presents a striking paradox. Fewer than one in five grade 4 learners can read for meaning, yet more than 60% of young people (aged 15 to 24) eventually complete grade 12. Matric (school leaving exam) pass rates have been rising steadily and reached record highs in recent years, especially in poorer schools.
How do so many learners make it through the system when their early learning paths suggest they should not?
This question motivated recent work by our research project, the Mixed Methods Investigation of Learner Assessment Progress and Support, located at Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Fifty teachers in eight high schools were interviewed about how learners move through the schooling system. We also drew on existing quantitative databases, official reports and policy documents.
Rather than offering a single explanation, the research identifies a set of interlocking policies and practices that enable learners to reach grade 12 even when mastery of grade-level content is limited.
The system operates with two competing pressures:
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keeping learners in school and moving through the grades
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upholding the quality of learning.
This tension places teachers under immense strain, especially without adequate remediation opportunities for learners with large learning gaps.
A hybrid system of promotion and progression
When large numbers of learners fall behind, education systems typically choose between two strategies: grade retention, where learners repeat until they meet minimum requirements; or social promotion, where they advance regardless of performance. Grade retention is used in many low- and middle-income countries, like Brazil. Social promotion is used across a range of contexts, from Denmark to Ghana. South Africa uses both.
Official policy limits learners to repeating only once per school phase (foundation, intermediate, senior). After that, they must progress to the next grade even if they haven’t met the requirements for promotion. This “years-in-phase” rule was introduced partly to reduce over-age learners in the system and control the cost of repetition, where repeaters consume around 8% of the national education budget. Only 30% to 40% of learners reach matric without repeating.
The result is a hybrid system that retains some learners to repeat the grade while allowing others to progress to the next grade despite not having met the promotion requirements.
In practice, many learners enter high school without the curriculum knowledge they should have.
One of the striking findings of the study is how poorly progression status is understood at the school level. Many teachers are unaware of how many progressed learners are in their classes, or even how to identify them. This information exists in learner records, but is rarely used to plan teaching or provide additional support.
Teachers in our study reported significant academic gaps, especially in grades 8 and 9. Learners may struggle to read, write or perform basic calculations, yet are expected to engage with increasingly demanding content. Without dedicated support structures, teachers are left to “turn stones into bread”, as one teacher put it.
School-based assessment makes passing possible
Promotion decisions depend heavily on school-based assessments – projects, tests, assignments, orals and practical tasks set and marked by teachers.
Over time, the weighting of these assessments relative to examinations has increased, especially during and after the COVID-19 period. Our research shows they are often leniently marked and rarely failed. Learners are frequently given multiple opportunities to complete tasks, with help from teachers or parents. As one grade 8 mathematics teacher explained:
We mark and return the work to them so that they can fix what they have done. The mandate is that no child should fail an assignment. They can fail a test but not an assignment. If they fail you have to give it back to them so that they redo.
As a result, school-based assessment marks often compensate for weak examination performance. Administrative data confirm widespread “bunching” of learner marks just above pass cut-offs, particularly at the end of the school year. One teacher explained:
We get told, ‘you have too many failures’, ‘go back to rectify’. So those close to 30%, they get pushed up.
Predictable exams and teaching to the test
Examination formats have become more predictable. Past papers are recycled. Teachers in the study described coaching learners to recognise recurring question types, memorise essays and rehearse model answers.
That might help learners move through the grades, but it can discourage deeper conceptual understanding and potentially limit learners’ ability to transfer knowledge to unfamiliar contexts.
Read more: What’s stopping kids from learning useful skills? Short answer: exams
Bureaucratic and political pressure to pass
Matric results are publicly reported and used to evaluate schools and provincial education systems, which intensifies the focus on pass rates. Retaining learners, by contrast, involves onerous administrative procedures and increases financial pressure on the system. Progression, therefore, becomes not only a decision about learning, but an organisational and political one.
Teachers in the study felt that their professional judgment was overridden in the process. The ethical dilemma of passing students, knowing they are not academically prepared for the next grade and are unlikely to receive additional support there, is deeply felt.
Intensive support arrives late, and unevenly
In addressing academic backlogs, the system concentrates its resources at the very end of schooling. Grade 12 learners benefit from extra classes, revision camps, NGO programmes and targeted district interventions. These “just-in-time” strategies are designed to push learners over the matric finish line.
Grades 8 and 9 often receive less experienced teachers and minimal additional support. The study found that in some schools, student teachers are assigned to lower secondary grades while senior teachers focus on matric classes.
By matric, the cohort is smaller and more resilient
Many learners drop out or repeat before reaching grade 12; currently just over 60% of youth will obtain a matric. Those who remain tend to be more academically able and more resilient. And motivation increases as matric approaches.
However, schools also engage in gatekeeping, recent research shows, discouraging weaker learners from proceeding to grade 12 if they are seen as a risk to overall pass rates. The eventual matric cohort is therefore winnowed and intensively supported.
Progression without remediation comes at a cost
Taken together, these dynamics explain how learner flows to grade 12 are sustained despite poor early learning outcomes.
The hybrid model is not inherently flawed, but is poorly understood and insufficiently supported. We argue that progression must be accompanied by realistic, well-resourced strategies to address learning gaps early, especially in lower secondary grades.
The challenge is to ensure that reaching the end of school represents meaningful learning, not just survival through the system.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
