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Pretoria - While the overall pass rate for matriculants has increased, the number of students who passed the mathematics paper dropped in 2010, the basic education department said on Thursday.
Basic education director general Bobby Soobrayan said that the drop in the number of pupils writing mathematics was a concern.
According to the Report on the National Senior Certificate Examinations, 263 034 pupils wrote the mathematics paper in 2010, 38 620 fewer than in 2009 - or a 14% drop.
About 300 829 wrote the mathematics paper in 2008.
Soobrayan said that while the overall pass rate of those achieving 30% or more had increased slightly to 47.4%, it was disappointing that fewer pupils had taken the subject.
The number of candidates who achieved a pass rate of 40% - the pass rate required to be considered for university entrance - dropped from 90 699 candidates in 2009 to 81 374 candidates in 2010, or a fall of 10.2%.
Only 30.9% of candidates achieved a mark above 40%.
The pass rates were similar for physical science, with 47.8% achieving a mark above 30% and 29.7% over 40%.
Pupils generally did well in their home language subject, with those sitting the English exam showing a 92.8% pass rate.
Pass rates for other home languages hovered around 98% and 99%.
The overall matric pass rate for 2010 stood at 67.8%, up from 60.7% in 2009.
It was 62.5% in 2008 and 65.2% in 2007.
President Jacob Zuma on Thursday congratulated matriculants for the improved national pass rate of 67.8%.
