Education experts have warned that this year's matrics will produce fewer distinctions and that the pass rate will be "significantly lower" than last year.
The head of a principals' association is also expecting 80% of the so-called "progressed" pupils - those who were promoted to matric despite failing grade 11 - to fail the exams.
A total of 125,691 progressed pupils entered for the November exams last year but only 34,498 wrote all six papers at one sitting and 68.1% passed. At least 88,685 of the remaining candidates wrote some papers last year and are expected to write the rest next month.
The concession awarded to progressed pupils from 2015 up until last year - allowing them to write their papers over two years - has been scrapped and from this year they will have to write all papers during the November-December exams.
Servaas van der Berg, a professor of economics at the University of Stellenbosch, said the average matriculant was likely to have lost "about a quarter of the scheduled school days this year" because of the chaos caused by the pandemic.
"Thus, on average, they would be less prepared for the examination than in previous years."
He said that data from a recent survey indicated that 88% of matriculants had returned to school in July.
"The exact number now back at school is not known but as many as 10% of matrics may not return this year at all because of health concerns or because of having lost confidence that they can pass in these circumstances."
He said that Umalusi, the body responsible for standardising the results, was going to have a hard task this year.
"This year's circumstances would have increased inequalities between children in different schools and even between children in the same school because of differential access to the internet and differences in parents' ability to support their studies."
The number of candidates expected to sit for the matric exams
— 1,058,699
He said that even with some weaker candidates being absent, "it is inevitable that the matric pass rate would be significantly lower".
"Even at the top end, one would expect to see fewer distinctions."
David de Korte, national president of the 3,000-strong South African Principals' Association, expects the pass rate to decrease by 3% to 5%.
"We will most likely see at least 80% of progressed learners failing and this will further pull the average down."
The number of matric exam centres
— 14,235
Professor Felix Maringe, dean of education at the University of the Witwatersrand, said the pass rate is likely to be "significantly lower" in schools from largely rural provinces because their pupils would not have benefited from online learning.
"Issues of access to internet and data costs affect rural students more than they do urban children."
Professor Labby Ramrathan, of the faculty of education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said that the "unevenness" in the coverage of the curriculum by schools could contribute to the drop in the pass rate.
The number of matric marking centres
— 189
He said the scrapping of the concession for progressed pupils to write over two years would also negatively affect the pass rate.
"The pass rates of these progressed learners were very low in previous sittings."
He suggested the matric exam papers should be amended to give pupils a wider selection of questions to choose from - for example, six out of 10 questions.
"The learners would have an opportunity to answer questions in areas where they had some exposure through teaching rather than to answer questions that they may not have covered at school."
But professor Ursula Hoadley, of the University of Cape Town's school of education, said that "we need to get over the obsession with the pass rate".
"A million learners will be able to write the most consequential examination of their lives. One can only imagine the mess we would be sitting with if the department of basic education had not pushed the boat out to secure these exams."
She said that 62% of 7,162 schools had indicated they would have covered the necessary content before the exams.
In a bid to address matric marker shortages, the department has indicated that provinces can relax the selection criteria for the appointment of markers.
The department's director-general, Mathanzima Mweli, informed provinces in a circular dated September 2 that teachers currently teaching grade 11 could be considered for marking if they had taught the subject in matric for a minimum of two years in the past five years.
Provincial education departments could also exceed the allowed 10% quota of novice markers that can be appointed in a subject.
They could also request markers appointed last year but who did not apply for marking this year to apply to mark matric papers.
The department did not respond to media queries.
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