{"id":90091,"date":"2025-01-14T14:19:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T14:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=90091"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:38:22","slug":"from-grade-1-to-matric-tracking-the-shrinking-class-of-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/01\/14\/from-grade-1-to-matric-tracking-the-shrinking-class-of-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"From grade 1 to matric: Tracking the shrinking class of 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/laura-grant-64416a7\/\">Laura Grant<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"980\" src=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SchoolThroughput-2024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-90093\" srcset=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SchoolThroughput-2024.png 980w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SchoolThroughput-2024-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SchoolThroughput-2024-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SchoolThroughput-2024-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\ud83d\udc40 <strong>Visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/theoutlier.co.za\/tools\/view\/school-progress\">interactive version of this tracker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of 2024&#8217;s grade 12 class started their school journey in 2013. In that year, 1.2-million children were enrolled in grade 1. By 2024, the grade 12 class had 740,876 learners \u2013 60% of the size of the class 12 years previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In general, the number of children moving to the next grade gradually decreases. After grade 10, there is usually a significant drop. The class of 2024, for example, shrunk by 407,561 learners between grade 10 and matric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The difference between the number of learners in grade 10 and grade 12 is used to calculate the throughput rate, which was 64.5% in 2024. In other words, close to two out of three grade 10s made it to matric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is lower than last year\u2019s 68%. The throughput rate has been decreasing since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Failure and repetition rates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Mathanzima Mweli, the director-general of the department of basic education, said this year\u2019s 64% throughput rate was \u2018healthy\u2019 when compared with other middle-income countries. These, he said, \u2018are expected to be around 60% or so\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 407,561 who didn\u2019t make it from grade 10 to grade 12 did not necessarily drop out of the education system. \u2018Our main problem is the high failure and repetition rate,\u2019 Mweli said when he presented the technical report for the 2024 exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The table shows the number of pupils enrolled in each grade from 2007 to 2024, according to department of basic education data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/theoutlier.co.za\/tools\/view\/school-progress\">The Outlier&#8217;s school tracker<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1387],"tags":[490,489,59,1326,141,60,40,1325,462],"newsletter-post":[],"site":[],"class_list":["post-90091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-the-outlier","tag-dbe","tag-department-of-basic-education","tag-education","tag-mathanzima-mweli","tag-matric","tag-matric-results","tag-south-africa","tag-throughput-rate","tag-tools"],"acf":{"big_number":"","big_number_caption":"","big_number_link":"","big_number_background":"","big_number_text_colour":"#000000","big_number_icon":false,"big_number_wide":"yes","featured_chart":false,"flourish_chart_id":"","flourish_sub_title":"","flourish_chart_width":"medium","is_newsletter_post":"No","post_style":"bc","show_on_front":"Yes","link_through":"Yes","chart_url":"","background_colour":"#0089AA","text_colour":"#FFFFFF"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90091"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90100,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90091\/revisions\/90100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90091"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-post?post=90091"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=90091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}