Youth born just after the turn of democracy in 1994 have the highest years of completed education of any cohort in South African history. This is a trend worth celebrating. Yet South Africa’s educational progress is occurring alongside various constraints: slow economic growth; high and rising unemployment especially among youth; public finance constraints in expanding post-school education and training (PSET) opportunities; and growing concerns about mismatches between youth’s skills and the skills demanded in a changing world of work.
The COVID-19 pandemic also resulted in unprecedented disruptions to schooling, and large losses in learning. However, an unexpected pattern emerged over the pandemic period: South African youth’s average years of completed education continued to rise. For instance, the average 28-year-old in 2023/24 had more years of completed education than the average 28-year-old in 2018/19.
These patterns and circumstances present us with various questions. Why would we continue to see rising levels of average education in South Africa during and in the years just following the COVID-19 pandemic? And thinking more generally about the implications of rising educational attainment for youth and the nation, are the post-school transitions of these more educated youth cohorts likely to be any better than those of similarly educated youth born a decade or two previously?
With these questions in mind, this compilation of four research chapters by Gabrielle Wills, Rebecca Selkirk and John Kruger aims to provide an increased understanding of school completion trends in South Africa and relatedly matric performance. This compilation also investigates youth transitions beyond school with a particular focus on recent matriculants. Understanding how COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to schooling and the labour market have affected these trends features strongly, against a larger COVID-Generation Project for which this research compilation has been produced.
Specifically, this research compilation aims to answer questions such as
- By how much has school completion increased since the introduction of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) in 2008, and how did the pandemic affect school completion rates?
- Can the large increases in school completion, and relatively buoyant results in the NSC during and after the pandemic, be explained?
- Have we seen any progress with respect to inequalities in matric results across poorer and wealthier schools since the introduction of the NSC?
- During the pandemic to what extent, if any, was there grade inflation in NSC results and performance in NSC Mathematics?
- Is the matric still a useful signal of ability as reflected in its predictive power of academic success at university and in the extent to which it is currently rewarded in the labour market?
- What are recent matriculants doing? And how have NEET (not in employment, education or training) rates changed among recent matriculants in the past decade?
- Could the post-school education and training system (PSET) play a more significant and stronger role in directly absorbing young people, including recent matriculants?
This research was made possible by financial support from Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropies. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropies.
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