The opening presentation delivered during the DG’s engagements with provinces was the Analysis of the 2025 Performance of Grade 12. Dr Rufus Poliah, Chief Director, National Assessments and Public Examinations, said that only a few highlights will be shared as DG Mweli presented the comprehensive Class of 2025 Technical Report during the release of the NSC examinations.

Mr Hilton Visagie, Director for Assessment and Administration, shared important lessons learnt: “The main transition points between grades remain areas of concern. The schooling system is retaining learners up to Grade 10 with the big drop taking place from Grades 10 to 11 (190,342) and Grades 11 to 12 (218,333). Further work needs to be undertaken in terms of tracking learners. The drop in the part-time enrolments can be attributed to the improved pass rates of the last few years and the special opportunity provided to these learners in the May/June examination. The increase in the number of learners with special needs from 6,470 to 10,188, as well as the increase in the number of accommodations to 17,017 is also encouraging. The decrease in the number of progressed learners in four of the nine Provincial Education Departments (PEDs), must be further analysed to eliminate culling by schools. There has been an increase in subject enrolments across all subjects, however, critical subjects such as Accounting, Economics, Mathematics and Technology, are not increasing as required. The migration of learners to Mathematical Literacy (65%) and the decline in Mathematics (34.6%) uptake is of serious concern. A total of 604,021 candidates are social grant recipients, and this constitutes 79% of the total Grade 12 population. Greater emphasis should be on the boy child to ensure that he is retained in the education system”. Mr Visagie flagged the importance of the Business Intelligence application shared with provinces on 14 January 2026, for further analysis, enabling a deep dive into the subject participation and performance of learners across provinces and districts.

Mr Christo Thurston, from National Assessments and Public Examinations, delivered a presentation on the importance of increasing Accommodations and Concessions to learners, highlighting key challenges with a request to support learners appropriately for early intervention.

Prof Martin Gustafsson, DBE Researcher, and Dr Stephen Taylor, Director for Research, Monitoring and Evaluation, presented a Thematic Analysis of District Presentations: “Through our monitoring, we encourage a shift towards a stronger focus on improved throughput rates and learning outcomes at all levels, with the most important indicators being the proportion of Grade 3 learners reaching the required competency levels in reading and numeracy skills as assessed through the South African Systemic Evaluation, as well as those achieving 60% in Grade 12 Mathematics and Physical Science subjects as per the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) and the Action Plan to 2029, to improve STEM participation and to assist learners to choose Mathematics and Mathematics Literacy as a subject wisely. Districts were encouraged to use School-Based Assessments and data sets from the Data Driven Dashboards (DDD), SA-SAMS and the Learner Unit Record Information and Tracking System (LURITS) to improve analysis and monitoring for improvement in sector priority areas. DBE district profiles will be published on the DBE website.

Mr Enoch Rabotapi, Acting DDG for the Teachers, Human Resource and Institutional Development Branch, provided a progress report on the Online Teacher Development Platform (OTDP) as a multi-phase initiative designed to coordinate integrated continuing professional teacher development (CPTD) activities and provide course management services for approved content providers. Phase three was finalized with the integration of the South African Council for Educators (SACE) platform in July 2025, enabling teachers to automatically receive CPTD points immediately upon completing an online programme. Platform training is currently taking place in the form of provincial roadshows.

Adv Zukile Ntshwanti from the DBE’s Legal and Legislative Services, gave a short presentation on the implementation of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act and the drafting of the Regulations, whilst Mr Ramasedi Mafoko, Acting Head of Infrastructure, accentuated the fact that the Provincial Infrastructure Programme is implemented by PEDs with a focus on new and replacement schools, maintenance, repairs, renovations and rehabilitation, upgrading and additions. The Provincial Infrastructure Programme is funded from the Equitable Share (ES) and Education Infrastructure Grants (EIG).

The New Leaders Foundation emphasised the use of data as part of the Data Driven Districts (DDD) South African School Administration and Management System (SA-SAMS), “powers” the DDD Dashboard by supplying relevant data that is transformed into clear, practical insights for monitoring purposes. Information captured by schools in SA-SAMS is securely extracted and visualised on the DDD Dashboard, representing more than 12 million learners across around 24, 000 schools in eight Provinces. Together, SA-SAMS and DDD shift the system from reporting after the fact to using data in near real time, helping target support, improve planning, and strengthen learner outcomes across the education system.

The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) indicated that the success of the sector depends on the functionality and accountability of the entire ecosystem, national, provincial, district and schools, to work together to identify and eliminate information gaps between policy and implementation. The AGSA shared recommendations on the 2025/26 Sector Audit themes, key focus areas, achievements and areas still requiring improvement. Important to note is the Audit on Inclusive Education indicating that the sector has not been implementing the Education White Paper 6 proposition to transform special needs schools fully. This was followed by a call to action to address the needs of children with disabilities by intervening whilst they are young to leave no one behind.