To finalise: KZN’s matric pass rate raises questions of quality and sustainability

As KZN celebrates this significant achievement, the need for long term solutions looms larger than ever, writes Professor Wayne Hugo

- Professor Wayne Hugo

KWAZULU-NATAL'’S 2025 matric pass rate landed at the top of the provinces at 90.6%, and I had two reactions fighting inside my head.

One was the knee-jerk suspicion: how does KZN beat the Western Cape and Gauteng? Something must have been cooked. The other was the slower, research-trained voice: KZN has, for several years now, been running a fairly serious improvement machine, with repeated reports that it is doing what it says it is doing.

The suspicion is not irrational. Many of my now-qualified students cannot find teaching posts without some kind of informal “fee”.

They are doing Honours and Master's programmes because they can’t find a teaching post.

On school visits, principals tell me they do not have money for cleaning products, never mind ink and paper. And everyone inside education knows the province's finances have been strained to breaking point.

So the question is not whether cynicism is allowed.

The question is whether cynicism explains this result. The cleanest way to start is with the pattern, not the mood.

KZN did not jump once. The pass rate rose year after year, from 76.8% in 2021, to 90.6% in 2025. And the province did not get there by shrinking the number of candidates writing matric.

In 2025, 171 368 candidates wrote and 155 258 passed.

That is a large cohort and a record pass rate at the same time. If you want to build a conspiracy that the numbers were managed, you have to explain why the system would choose the hardest route: a bigger exam and more passes while still lifting the percentage.