{"id":90117,"date":"2025-01-21T08:18:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T08:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=90117"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:38:22","slug":"most-popular-school-subjects-ranked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/most-popular-school-subjects-ranked\/","title":{"rendered":"Most-popular school subjects, ranked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/subjects-matric2024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-90116\" srcset=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/subjects-matric2024.png 800w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/subjects-matric2024-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/subjects-matric2024-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/subjects-matric2024-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">More like this: <a href=\"https:\/\/theoutlier.co.za\/charts\">Our World in Charts<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What subjects are South Africa\u2019s high school learners opting to take to grade 12? English, maths literacy and life sciences are the three most popular choices in terms of the number of learners who wrote the final grade 12 exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 11 \u2018core\u2019 subjects offered (see chart) in SA\u2019s school\u2019s, maths is ranked fifth and physical science eighth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2024, close to 584,000 learners wrote English, 443,000 wrote maths literacy and 375,000 wrote life sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In comparison, 251,488 wrote maths and 200,715 wrote physical science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maths and physical science are what the department of basic education calls \u2018gateway subjects that are essential for South Africa\u2019s socioeconomic development\u2019, yet only about one-third (36%) of the grade 12 learners wrote the maths exams and 28% wrote the physical science exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In both subjects, about one in five passed with 60% or more, the marks required to get into a science degree at university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\ud83d\udd17 Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/01\/19\/matric-2024-the-highlights-most-arent-talking-about\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"90102\">Matric 2024 Results: Our Highlights<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1387],"tags":[1327,1331,490,489,59,1330,1329,1332,60,142,1328],"newsletter-post":[],"site":[],"class_list":["post-90117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-the-outlier","tag-class-of-2024","tag-core-maths","tag-dbe","tag-department-of-basic-education","tag-education","tag-english","tag-life-sciences","tag-maths-literacy","tag-matric-results","tag-science","tag-subject-choices"],"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\/90117","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=90117"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90844,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90117\/revisions\/90844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90117"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-post?post=90117"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=90117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}