No easy ride for class of 2025

My daughter writes her final matric exam this morning. My head still can't get around it.

- Trevor Stevens

Her first day at school feels like a lifetime ago yet, in the same breath, it feels like just the other day she sat down behind a desk for the first time at school, missing a few front teeth and in a uniform far too big for her.

When the teachers say pens down at 11.30am this morning it will bring down the curtain on her school experience after 13 years (yes, I'm including Grade R nowadays as it's business as usual at most schools where the children have to be dressed in uniforms from a young age, and sometimes even earlier).

Over the next few days my daughter is one of over 900 000 matrics finishing writing their National Senior Certificate exams.

That number grows when you add those that sat for the Independent Examinations Board exams.

That's close to a million children leaving school if all goes well. Wow, how exciting, yet daunting.