Undocumented learners face South Africa matric barriers

Undocumented learners are sitting South Africa’s 2026 National Senior Certificate exams as close to 1 million candidates write, while violence and document problems disrupt some pupils, Daily Maverick said in an Oct. 30 news report.

The stakes are immediate for Grade 12 learners: the report said a Zimbabwe Exemption Permit Coordinating Committee list named 99 learners who feared missing exams, while the Department of Basic Education confirmed 76 were registered.

The committee sent the list in July to Zimbabwe’s embassy and the Department of Basic Education, Daily Maverick reported. In a response to EdDesk, the department said the 76 registered candidates all “will write the NSC examinations at the centres at which they are registered, and where they have completed their School-Based Assessment”.

Daily Maverick described the case of Blessing Kachere, a Malawian learner separated from his parents on June 1 after a mob went door to door looking for migrants in Masakhane in the Western Cape’s Overberg region. His school was nearly 50 kilometers away, and his family later left South Africa on buses organised by Overstrand Municipality to repatriate Malawian nationals.

The report said Kachere’s father, Wisdom Kachere, told Daily Maverick by WhatsApp that the Malawian Embassy said it could not help unless his son returned to school to write exams. The family cannot afford the journey back, and the report said Blessing appears to have been de-registered because of absenteeism.

Paperwork meets legal right

Other learners described losing class time while seeking documents. Mufaro Marufu, a Grade 12 learner at a Cape Town school, said documentation became “a seriously big deal” because her parents moved to South Africa when she was very young and she had never left the country.

“Now all of a sudden I must go back to Zimbabwe, a place I have never been, and I must go alone because my father is an Uber driver, and can’t afford the time off,” Marufu said, according to Daily Maverick. The report said processing delays meant she missed most of a school term, although she later caught up with support from her father and a geography teacher.

South African public schools may request documents under admission regulations, but SECTION27’s Zeenat Sujee told Daily Maverick the problem is when Grade 12 learners are not told they can still register for and write matric exams without them. She pointed to the 2019 Phakamisa judgment, formally Centre for Child Law and Others v Minister of Basic Education and Others, which allowed undocumented learners to enrol at schools and sit matric exams.

Daily Maverick reported that the Department of Basic Education has confirmed undocumented learners cannot be blocked from registering for or writing the National Senior Certificate. It also reported that Umalusi, South Africa’s education quality council, has confirmed an identity document is not compulsory for issuing a matric certificate.

For learners who miss an exam for reasons beyond their control, Nelson Mandela University Refugee Rights Centre attorney Liesl Fourie advised that they make an affidavit at the nearest police station and take it to the school principal. Fourie told Daily Maverick it still needs to be tested whether displacement by violence will be accepted as grounds to write supplementary exams in June 2027 or re-register for the 2027 National Senior Certificate.

Barriers after school

Daily Maverick also reported that undocumented learners face constraints after matric. Angela Mukana, a Grade 12 learner at Bellville South High School whose parents are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said she was born in South Africa but has no birth certificate or South African identity document.

“My parents are refugees from DRC, but I’ve never been to Congo. I was born here. I grew up here.

I speak English, Afrikaans, and a bit of Xhosa, but legally I don’t exist because I don’t have a birth certificate or a South African ID,” Mukana said.

Mukana said she wants to become a barrister, but would have to apply to university as an international student without a South African identity number. She said she could not access National Student Financial Aid Scheme funds or bursaries requiring a 13-digit ID number, and said the Legal Practice Council would not register her without a valid ID.

Fourie said the problem is not confined to children of immigrants. She told Daily Maverick that children born to South African parents can face similar problems when births are not registered within 30 days, and that applications made after seven years can take years to complete.