Youth born just after the turn of democracy in 1994 have the highest years of completed education of any cohort in South African history and this may rise further among younger age cohorts. While this is a trend worth celebrating, South Africa’s educational progress is occurring alongside various constraints including slow economic growth, high youth unemployment and public finance constraints in expanding post-school education and training (PSET) opportunities.

A new compilation of research titled “School completion, the matric and post-school transitions in South Africa” authored by Dr Gabrielle Wills with contributions from Rebecca Selkirk and John Kruger at Research on Socio-Economic Policy, Stellenbosch University investigates school completion trends in South Africa, matric performance and youth transitions beyond school with a particular focus on recent matriculants. The report compiles research from a number of studies commissioned within the COVID-Generation Project, made possible by financial support from Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropies.

As Wills reflects: “This study highlights how increasingly larger proportions of recent matriculants find themselves unable to access meaningful opportunities. The rising numbers of youth leaving school with a matric, particularly in recent years, is not being met with commensurate opportunities beyond school - whether in work or in post-school education and training (PSET). Conditions in South Africa's labour market must improve and further expansion in quality PSET is required for the country to realise the benefits of rising educational attainment and educational progress for national development.”

A. Rising school completion rates

1. Rising school completion: At the dawn of democracy, fewer than a third of 25- to 34-year-olds had successfully achieved a matric or equivalent qualification. Thirty years later, the proportion of individuals in this age group having completed their schooling almost doubled to 57%. With unprecedented increases in the numbers of Grade 12s achieving a pass in the National Senior Certificate in recent years, the school completion rate (reflecting the likelihood that a youth will leave the schooling system with a matric) is even higher, reaching almost 64% at the start of 2024 (up from 48% in 2010).

B. Limited opportunities for work or study beyond matric

Against a rising tide in school completion, a critical question arises: What are the actual prospects for young South Africans once they have matriculated? To what extent are recent matriculants finding jobs or transitioning into post-school education and training (PSET) opportunities?

1. High NEET rates among recent matriculants: “Not in employment, education or training”, abbreviated as NEET, is a term used to describe young people who are not working, studying, or participating in a training program. Sadly, one of every two recent matriculants (defined as 15-24-year-olds with 12 years of completed schooling) in the first quarter of 2024 was NEET.
2. NEET rates among recent matriculants have risen over the last decade: Before the COVID-19 pandemic (2014–2019), around 44–45% of recent matriculants were classified as NEET. This figure peaked at a staggering 55% in early 2022 and remained alarmingly high at 49.8% at the start of 2024. These trends mirror broader increases in NEET rates among all youth aged 15-24, which have risen from 32.2% in the first quarter of 2014 to 35.4% in first quarter of 2024. Even larger NEET rate increases were seen for youth aged 25-34, rising from 45% in the first quarter of 2014 to 52% in the first quarter of 2024. This is a concern where NEET status is associated with worse mental health, particularly among young men.
3. Having a matric provides protective effect against being NEET. Despite rising NEET rates among recent matriculants in the past decade, this does not diminish the importance of obtaining a matric qualification. Nearly half (5 out of 10) of matriculants aged 15-24 were classified as NEET in the first quarter of 2024. But almost 8 out of 10 of their peers who had dropped out of school were NEET. The prospects of finding a job, and what you can earn in that job, with a matric also remain much higher than not having a matric but there is a much larger and growing advantage to having a post-school qualification over having a matric.
4. Where you live matters for post-matriculation opportunities: There exist large regional variations in NEET rates among recent matriculants. For instance, among 15-24-year-olds with a matric living in the Western Cape in 2023/24, about a third were NEET compared to 61% of their peers in Mpumulanga and two-thirds (68%) of their peers in North West Province.
5. Recent matriculants who are NEET are now more likely to find themselves among the long-term unemployed: As Wills describes “The road to opportunity beyond school is harder and more hazardous than it was a decade ago.” In 2014, 27.2% of NEET youth aged 15-24 with a matric had been searching for work for over a year. By the first quarter of 2020, this had increased to nearly 33% and remained significantly elevated at 32% in the first quarter of 2024 when compared to 2014.

C. Reasons behind rising NEET rates among recent matriculants

Limited expansion in post-school education and training (PSET) opportunities in the past decade (2014-2024) positioned against a deteriorating youth labour market has meant the youth NEET problem in South Africa has worsened.

1. Youth with matric were about as likely to get a job in 2024 as they were 8 to 10 years previously without a matric. Ten years ago, finding a job was easier for matriculants than it will be for the matric class who finished school in 2024. The likelihood of economically active youth (including discouraged work seekers) with a matric (12 years of completed schooling) having a job at the start of 2024 roughly resembled the chances of youth without a matric having a job eight to ten years ago. While changes in the composition of the matric group over time could be driving some of the declines in their employment prospects, employment prospects have declined for all youth, including those with a post-school qualification, over the past decade.
2. Enrolments in post-school education and training (PSET) are not growing sufficiently to match the rising tide in school completion. Despite ambitious plans from the government for significant expansion in PSET opportunities, the proportion of youth aged 15-24 (or youth aged 15-24 with a matric) enrolled in PSET did not improve much between 2014 and 2024. Enrolments in PSET are not growing sufficiently to match the rising tide in school completion or to absorb youth who cannot find jobs. With projected declines in real per student spending on PSET as South Africa addresses high national debt servicing costs, significant growth in PSET is unlikely to occur anytime soon.
3. Despite progress in expanding PSET opportunities from 1994 to about 2015, South Africa is now falling significantly behind other middle-income countries in getting youth into tertiary education. For example, 2021 estimates from the World Bank identify South Africa’s tertiary enrolment rate at 25%, compared to 57% in Brazil and 67% in China. This gap between South Africa’s tertiary enrolment rate and that of comparative countries has increased since the 90s.

Concluding remarks

This research highlights the urgent need to create meaningful opportunities for youth transitioning out of the schooling system through a multi-faceted approach: expanding access to quality PSET opportunities, improving the alignment between the supply of skills from the education system and labour market demands, and creating effective pathways to employment. These efforts must be underpinned by economic growth, as without it, overcoming financial constraints in the PSET sector and generating sufficient demand for youth employment will remain a challenge. Addressing these issues is critical to improving the long-term prospects of South Africa’s youth and realising the benefits of rising educational attainment for national development.

For media inquiries please contact Gabrielle Wills: gabriellewills@sun.ac.za |