In 2003 there were 1.277m pupils starting school, but by 2015, there were only 687 230 pupils in Matric. This means only roughly half of those grade one students got into Matric without being held back. In 2016 there were 158 891 First time students entering public universities which was largely made up of the 2015 Matric class.
(https://bit.ly/38QuKh2, https://bit.ly/30WlpQs)