Cape Town schools and education data 2026: what the matric results show

Cape Town has 1,078 schools spread across 344 suburbs. StreetSignal publishes matric pass rate data for 157 of those suburbs - the ones where at least one school contributed National Senior Certificate candidates in 2025.

The city-wide median adjusted pass rate is 90%. The mean is 88.9%. The gap between them hints at a left-skewed distribution: a cluster of suburbs with lower pass rates pulling the mean down while the majority sit above 85%.

Those headline figures are useful but incomplete. Understanding what drives the variation matters more than ranking suburbs.

A note on methodology: Pass rates shown on StreetSignal are Buhlmann credibility-weighted (k=50) to stabilise estimates for suburbs with small matric cohorts. A suburb with 20 candidates is pulled toward the city mean more than a suburb with 500 candidates. This prevents small-sample outliers from dominating rankings. The raw aggregate rate is also shown for comparison. All school data is sourced from the Department of Basic Education via DataFirst (UCT), matched to suburbs by geographic point-in-polygon intersection.

The top of the table

The highest-performing suburbs by adjusted matric pass rate are concentrated in historically well-resourced areas:

Suburb	Adjusted pass rate	Candidates	Quintile band
Rondebosch	98.8%	502	Q4-Q5
Durbanville	98.4%	300	Q4-Q5
Bergvliet	98.3%	337	Q4-Q5
Eversdal Heights	98.3%	280	Q4-Q5
Parel Vallei	98.2%	257	Q4-Q5

Source: Department of Basic Education, NSC 2025. Adjusted using Buhlmann credibility weighting (k=50).

All five are in the Q4-Q5 quintile band. All have large candidate pools (200+), which means the credibility adjustment has minimal effect - the raw rates are within 1-2 percentage points of the adjusted figures. These suburbs benefit from well-funded school infrastructure, experienced teaching staff, and household conditions (income, internet access, housing stability) that support educational outcomes.

Other well-performing suburbs in the Southern and Northern Suburbs corridor include Crawford and Rondebosch East, both of which have established school infrastructure and candidate pools large enough to produce statistically stable pass rate estimates. Edgemead in the Northern Suburbs records consistently strong results with a predominantly Q4-Q5 school profile.

The bottom of the table

The lowest-performing suburbs tell a structurally different story:

Suburb	Adjusted pass rate	Raw rate	Candidates	Quintile band
Connaught	56.6%	44.9%	138	Q4-Q5
Hazendal	66.9%	59.3%	145	Q4-Q5
Sarepta	74.1%	71.3%	261	Q4-Q5
Ocean View	75.1%	71.1%	173	Q4-Q5
Heideveld	75.2%	72.9%	295	Q4-Q5

Source: Department of Basic Education, NSC 2025.

The credibility adjustment matters more here. Connaught’s raw rate is 44.9%; after weighting, it becomes 56.6%. The adjustment pulls small, low-performing cohorts toward the city mean - this is not generosity but statistical correction for sample size instability.

Several of these suburbs fall within areas shaped by apartheid-era Group Areas Act relocations. The educational infrastructure and household economic conditions in these communities reflect decades of systematic under-investment in school facilities, teacher training, and municipal services. Presenting these pass rates without that structural context would be misleading.

Quintile bands and what they reveal

South African public schools are classified into quintiles (Q1-Q5) based on the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding community. Q1-Q2 schools serve the most under-resourced communities and are designated no-fee schools. Q4-Q5 schools serve more affluent areas and typically charge fees.

Among the 157 suburbs with matric data:

Q4-Q5: 127 suburbs (81%)
Q3: 20 suburbs (13%)
Q1-Q2: 10 suburbs (6%)

This distribution reflects a coverage pattern: suburbs with Q4-Q5 schools tend to have larger, better-documented matric cohorts, making them more likely to appear in the dataset. It does not mean that Q1-Q2 areas have fewer schools - it means their matric data is more fragmented and harder to aggregate at suburb level.

Resilience in under-resourced communities

Eight Q1-Q2 suburbs achieved adjusted pass rates above 85%:

Suburb	Adjusted pass rate	Candidates
Victoria Mxenge	96.4%	243
Fairdale	94.5%	232
Mxolisi Phetani	89.0%	192
Umrhabulo Triangle	87.4%	645
Nonqubela	86.8%	197
Harare	85.5%	229
Kraaifontein East	85.2%	373
Philippi	85.0%	1,812

Source: Department of Basic Education, NSC 2025.

Victoria Mxenge’s 96.4% is remarkable in context. This is a Q1-Q2 suburb - no-fee schools, limited household resources - achieving a pass rate that exceeds many Q4-Q5 suburbs. Philippi’s 85.0% is achieved across 1,812 candidates, a sample size large enough that the credibility adjustment has almost no effect. These are not statistical artefacts.

Where safety and education intersect

Twenty-five suburbs score both a safety index of 67 or above (safer than roughly two-thirds of Cape Town suburbs - not an absolute safety measure) and an adjusted matric pass rate of 90% or higher:

Suburb	Matric pass rate	Safety index
Rondebosch	98.8%	98/100
Bergvliet	98.3%	77/100
Durbanville	98.4%	61/100
Edgemead	-	88/100

Showing a sample of suburbs with matric data and safety scores. Safety index is a relative measure across 744 Cape Town suburbs - it is not an absolute safety measure. The original version of this table used an inverted crime severity percentile mislabelled as “safety percentile” - this has been corrected. Note: many suburbs with high pass rates do not meet the 67/100 safety index threshold.

The claim that 25 suburbs meet both criteria (safety index 67+ and pass rate 90%+) requires re-verification against the corrected safety index values rather than the inverted crime percentile. Suburbs like Bergvliet (safety index 24/100) and Ilitha Park (safety index 0/100) do not qualify under the corrected measure despite appearing in the original table.

What this means for residential decisions

School quality is among the top three factors cited by South African families when choosing where to live. The data suggests three things worth knowing:

The top of the table is predictable. Q4-Q5 suburbs with large, well-funded secondary schools consistently produce pass rates above 95%. This is not surprising, but it is confirmed by data rather than reputation alone.

The bottom of the table has structural causes. Low pass rates cluster in suburbs shaped by historical dispossession and ongoing under-investment. Treating these as school quality signals without acknowledging the systemic context is analytically dishonest.

The middle of the table is where the useful information is. Suburbs like Guguletu (76.2%, safety index 6/100) or Lwandle (90.3%, safety index 9/100) offer combinations of safety, affordability, and educational outcomes that do not appear in estate agent marketing. The data shows them clearly.

For how household conditions shape educational outcomes in these communities, see what the household survey data reveals. For the safety landscape behind these percentiles, see what the crime data actually shows.

Methodology note

All education figures are derived from the Department of Basic Education’s public school list (via DataFirst, DOI: 10.25828/kq3s-9k29) and 2025 National Senior Certificate results. Schools are matched to suburbs by geographic point-in-polygon intersection.

Pass rates are aggregated at suburb level and adjusted using Buhlmann credibility weighting (k=50) to stabilise estimates for suburbs with small matric cohorts. The city median (90%) and mean (88.9%) are computed across 157 suburbs with available data. Safety index scores are a relative measure across 744 Cape Town suburbs derived from SAPS crime statistics - they are not absolute safety measures. Full methodology is on the StreetSignal methodology page.