Pretoria – More than 10 000 matriculants who receive social grants dropped out of school before writing their final exams last year.
This was revealed by Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini during a press briefing announcing the matric results of social grant recipients in Pretoria on Tuesday morning.
Dlamini said of the 674 620 fulltime pupils registered to write the National Senior Certificate exams, 188 758 were social grant recipients.
Of that number, 178 411 wrote their exams leaving 10 347 who dropped out before they could sit for the exams. "We commit to investigating reasons for this dropout," Dlamini said.
Many of the children receiving the grants and wrote their exams were living in households headed by children and youth or under foster care.
She also announced that 83% of the grant recipients were eligible to further their studies for either a diploma or degree.