Secondary students in South Africa have shown a marked improvement in their final matriculation exams. Minister of Education Kader Asmal said the improvement in results was due to the success of strategies employed by regional education departments, not to "creative accounting". For example, "dysfunctional" schools (with a failure rate of more than 80 per cent) were singled out for special attention by education boards - and the number of schools in this category dropped from 940 to 499 this year.

However, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) expressed concern about the relatively poor performance of female candidates.