GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
13 January 2026
In 1953, Minister of Native Affairs HF Verwoerd introduced the Bantu Education Act that established a separate and inferior education system for Black children. “What is the point of teaching the Bantu child Mathematics,” he asked, when “there is no place for the Bantu… above the level of certain forms of labour”.
Seventy-two years later, the 2025 Western Cape Matric results reveal that the practice of disempowering the poorest citizens through the provision of inferior education remains in ruddy good health in a province that proclaims itself exceptionally well-run.
South Africa introduced a so-called No-Fee School policy in 2007, targeting the poorest 40% of schools in the country, which were identified based on community wealth. It was a policy that aimed to redress historic injustices and exclusions, aiming to remove financial barriers for the most disadvantaged learners.
Tracking the successes and failures of these schools is a useful measure to track education’s recovery from Verwoerd’s racist depredations.
Overall, Western Cape No-Fee Schools recorded an 84.2% pass rate. That’s 2.3% below the national average, in eighth position among the nine provinces. The percentage of Bachelor passes at these schools (38.7%) was 6.9% below the national average – again coming eight out of nine.
Delving deeper into the numbers, the Western Cape comes stone last in the category of Progressed Learners. These learners were advanced from one grade to the next, despite not meeting all the criteria, with a view to providing additional support and preventing them from dropping out of the system.
Progressed learners at No-Fee Schools in the Western Cape received an overall 38.3% Matric pass mark. That’s a whopping 16% below the national average, placing the province at the bottom of the pile. Just 2.4% of Progressed Learners at No-Fee Schools in the Western Cape achieved Bachelor passes. That’s 3.9% below the national average, once again placing the province in ninth position out of nine.
The Western Cape is the only DA-led province in the country. It has invested heavily in the idea that it is the best run. But these types of numbers don’t lie. The fact is that the Western Cape consistently keeps its poorest and most marginalised learners in a state of academic destitution.
Verwoerd would undoubtedly applaud.
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