Every January, South Africa holds its breath for matric results, and the Class of 2025 gave the country a moment worth celebrating. The national results were announced on 12 January 2026, and candidates could access their results from the morning of 13 January 2026. The headline figure landed with real weight: an 88% National Senior Certificate pass rate, described as the highest on record, with KwaZulu-Natal leading at 90.6%.
If you are a learner who made it, or a parent who has been carrying the pressure since prelims, you deserve to sit in that pride for a moment.
Then comes the more uncomfortable part. Results season is a mirror. It reflects what has been happening in classrooms for years, not just in Grade 12. And if we are honest, matric results are not only a story about hard work at the end. They are a story about learning quality all the way through.
That is where the EdTech conversation in South Africa often needs a reset, because we keep treating technology as the breakthrough, when the real breakthrough is still the person at the front of the class.
Matric results are a scoreboard, but they are not the full match
While the 88% pass rate for the Class of 2025 is truly worth celebrating, the highest on record with KwaZulu-Natal leading at 90.6%, it’s important to look deeper. Critics, including ActionSA, point out that the “real” throughput rate (accounting for learners who started Grade 10 but dropped out or repeated) is closer to 57.7%. Late dropouts between Grades 11 and 12 are particularly high, sometimes linked to schools retaining weaker learners to protect pass rates, a practice known as “gatekeeping.” Furthermore, pure Mathematics participation remains low at just 34.1%, with the pass rate in maths dropping to 64%. These gaps remind us that foundational fixes are urgent.
An 88% pass rate is a big deal. But when you zoom out, you start to see why pass rates alone cannot carry the whole national conversation about progress. Many learners arrive in high school already behind, not because they lack potential, but because the foundations they need were never properly cemented.
The World Bank uses the term “learning poverty” to describe children who cannot read and understand a simple text by age 10. In South Africa’s Learning Poverty brief, the figure has been framed in a way that should stop any of us mid-sentence, because it reminds us that access to schooling does not automatically translate into access to learning.
And then there is the reading reality check that is impossible to ignore. PIRLS 2021 findings have been widely cited as showing that 81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa could not read for meaning in any language assessed.
You can connect those dots without being dramatic. If a learner cannot read for meaning early on, every subject becomes harder. Maths word problems become intimidating. Natural sciences becomes memorisation instead of understanding. Exam technique becomes guesswork. By the time matric arrives, you are not only testing Grade 12 content. You are testing whether the system built the skills needed to handle Grade 12 content in the first place.
So yes, celebrate the 2025 results. Then ask the question that actually changes outcomes: what investment improves learning quality in a way that repeats itself across schools, provinces, and contexts?
Why “more tech” often disappoints in real classrooms
South Africa has tried the “technology will fix it” approach in different forms for years. Sometimes it is tablets. Sometimes it is a platform. Sometimes it is a new digital content library. Sometimes it is AI, packaged as if it can bypass every constraint we have ever faced.
The intention is usually good. The execution often misses the one ingredient that determines whether EdTech helps or harms.
Teacher confidence.
When teachers are not equipped, supported, and trained to integrate technology into real lesson design, real assessment, and real classroom routines, the tech becomes a side show. It becomes the thing you try when you have time, rather than the way you teach. In some schools, it becomes a symbol of inequality, because the tool exists but the capability to use it meaningfully does not.
This is not a criticism of teachers. It is a reality about how change works. People do not adopt what makes them feel incompetent, especially in front of a room full of learners who can smell uncertainty from a mile away.
EdTech does not fail because teachers “do not want to change”. It fails because too many initiatives assume that access to tools automatically creates the skill to use them.
The highest return on EdTech comes from teachers, not devices
Here is the simplest truth in education innovation: technology can scale content, but teachers scale quality.
A great teacher turns confusion into clarity. They notice when the room has switched off. They adjust the explanation, not the learner. They create an environment where learners feel safe enough to try, fail, and try again. They connect subject content to real life in a way that makes learning feel like it matters. They do the human work that no platform can replicate.
Real-world examples show what’s possible when we invest in teachers. The Funza Lushaka bursary scheme has produced over 52,000 qualified teachers since 2008, many placed in high-need areas. In the Western Cape, professional learning communities (PLCs) have boosted teacher collaboration and outcomes. NGOs like Funda Wande deliver targeted coaching in reading and maths for foundation and senior phases, yielding measurable gains in learner performance. These initiatives prove that focused teacher development delivers repeatable results across contexts.
Now imagine what happens when that teacher is also trained to use technology as part of pedagogy, not as decoration. Suddenly EdTech becomes a multiplier. It can support differentiated practice, strengthen feedback loops, speed up revision, visualise concepts, and open up more ways for learners to engage. But it only becomes powerful when a capable teacher is driving it with intention. That is why the best EdTech investment South Africa can make is not a bigger roll-out. It is stronger teacher preparation and continuous teacher development.
Why this ties directly to the Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and FET Teaching
Real-world examples show what is possible when we truly invest in teachers. The Funza Lushaka bursary scheme has supported thousands of new educators into high-need areas over the years. Professional learning communities in provinces like the Western Cape have strengthened teacher collaboration and improved classroom outcomes. Organisations such as Funda Wande offer targeted coaching in reading and maths across foundation and senior phases, and independent evaluations show measurable improvements in learner performance. These efforts demonstrate that focused teacher development produces real, repeatable results in different contexts.
Yet building great teachers means more than initial training. We also have to keep them in the system. South Africa continues to face shortages, particularly in rural schools and STEM subjects. Heavy workloads, safety concerns in certain areas, excessive administrative duties, and salaries that often fall short of the profession’s demands all contribute to teachers leaving or burning out. True retention calls for practical support: rural allowances, strong mentoring programmes, reduced admin burdens, and clear career pathways so that experienced, motivated educators choose to stay and grow.
Programmes like these create the foundation we need. Alongside offerings from public universities and ongoing in-service training, accredited qualifications such as the Regenesys Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching play an important role. This particular BEd stands out because it combines strong subject expertise with confident EdTech integration, and offers focused specialisations in Science and Technology or Business and Management, preparing aspiring teachers for the exact demands of today’s senior phase and FET classrooms.
The real question after the 2025 matric results
Every January, we celebrate learners, and we should. But if we want fewer learners to experience results day as a cliff edge, we have to invest earlier and smarter.
South Africa can buy technology again and again. It will never be enough on its own. The return only shows up when the people using it are trained, supported, and confident enough to make it serve learning.
That is why great teachers remain the best EdTech investment this country can make.
If you are someone who wants to shape the next generation of matric results, not just comment on them, the Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching is built for that kind of purpose. It is for people who want to become the teacher learners remember years later, not because you were “good with tech”, but because you helped them understand, grow, and believe they could.
