Are too many pupils being forced to repeat grades before matric, and does it really help them pass?
That is the question raised by new research by Dr Rebecca Selkirk, who says South Africa may be placing too much emphasis on matric results while overlooking the cost of high repetition rates in grades 10 and 11.
Selkirk recently obtained her doctorate in economics at Stellenbosch University (SU), where she studied grade repetition and matric performance.
Her research reveals that before the Covid-19 pandemic, about 1.5-million pupils repeated a grade each year across grades 1 to 12, roughly 12% of all learners. About a third of those repeats happened just before matric in grades 10 and 11.
At the end of 2019, 31% of grade 10 pupils and 24% of grade 11 pupils repeated the year.
“We spend a lot of money on retaining learners in grades 10 and 11, where repetition’s effectiveness is unclear, and the associated drop-out risk is highest. But despite this, repetition in these grades has received little research or policy attention,” said Selkirk.
As part of her study, Selkirk analysed grade 11 repetition rates and matric pass rates in Western Cape schools between 2018 and 2021.
She found that schools with higher grade 11 repetition rates tended to have better matric results.
According to Selkirk, this could mean that schools may benefit (through higher matric pass rates) by “gatekeeping” access to matric and/or that repeating grade 11 helps pupils catch up and improve their chances of passing matric.
However, the pattern changed during the pandemic.
If grade inflation was not the cause, then it also prompts another question: should grade 11 repetition rates be allowed to return to pre-pandemic levels, if the ‘gains’ schools received from maintaining high repetition rates were artificial and only applicable in a system where repetition was widespread?
When grade 11 repetition rates in the province dropped sharply at the end of 2020 from 12% to 6% due to Covid-19 leniency, the link between repetition and matric success became weaker.
Selkirk also estimated what the province’s matric results in 2020 and 2021 might have looked like if repetition levels had remained higher.
“Estimates showed that schools’ achievement in 2021 was much higher than expected given the lower repetition rates, particular in less resourced (Quintile 1 to 4) schools where the changes in repetition patterns were most stark, and learners would have been expected to be more exposed to the negative impacts of the pandemic.”
According to Selkirk, this raised more questions about whether lower repetition rates may have unintentionally inflated the 2021 matric results by influencing the mark standardisation process.
“If grade inflation was not the cause, then it also prompts another question: should grade 11 repetition rates be allowed to return to pre-pandemic levels, if the ‘gains’ schools received from maintaining high repetition rates were artificial and only applicable in a system where repetition was widespread?”
National trends also surprised Selkirk. Despite a sharp drop in repetition during the pandemic, with national grade 11 repetition rates falling from 24% to 12%, matric results continued to improve in the following years.
After stabilising during the pandemic, pass rates and bachelor passes reached record levels by 2023 and 2024.
“After an initial decline and stabilisation in 2020 and 2021, the matric pass and bachelor pass rates broke records by 2023 and 2024,” said Selkirk.
“And in absolute numbers, matric success over the 2020 to 2024 period was staggering: these five years produced the pre-pandemic equivalent of six-and-a-half full years of matric passes, while bachelor passes amounted to more than eight years’ worth,” she added.
To understand the improvement, Selkirk analysed national matric results from 2011, 2019, 2021 and 2023, looking at factors such as pupil age, subject choices and academic ability.
However, these factors explained only a small part of the overall improvement. Selkirk said several possibilities could explain the results.
“It is possible that pandemic-related support programmes more than compensated for any learning losses, and that this additional support was more beneficial than repetition for learners who would normally have repeated grade 10 and/or 11 pre-pandemic.”
She added that fewer pupils repeating could also have helped in other ways.
“It is also possible that lower repetition on its own was beneficial (for example, in reducing class sizes, avoiding negative psychosocial effects such as academic disengagement for would-be repeaters) — 2023 had the highest-ever proportion of matric candidates who were the correct age-for-grade, a factor usually positively associated with achievement.”
However, repetition rates appear to be rising again. Selkirk pointed to evidence that grades 10 and 11 repetition levels are returning to the high levels seen before the pandemic.
“There is enough evidence to suggest that our high grade 10 and 11 repetition rates may not be justified, and that alternatives to repetition could be equally or more beneficial to struggling learners,” she said.
She added that more research is urgently needed in this area because the potential cost savings could free up resources for improvements elsewhere in the education system.
Selkirk also warned against focusing too heavily on matric pass rates.
“If we place too much emphasis on matric pass rates, we risk incentivising schools to make decisions, like maintaining these high repetition rates, encouraging ‘easier’ subject choices, focusing resources on matric alone — that may at best be sub-optimal and, at worst, harmful to learners or the education system as a whole.”
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