The matric Class of 2018 pass rate has increased by 3.1 per cent to 78.2 per cent.
This compared to 75.1 per cent in 2017.
On 3 January, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced the 2018 National Senior Certificate Examination results at Vodaworld in Midrand.
More than 600 000 learners across the country sat down for the November and December examinations.
These learners comprised 512 700 full-time candidates and 117 660 part-time candidates.
Motshekga has commended the Class of 2018 for maintaining the eight-year trend of consistently achieving a pass rate of above 70 per cent.
The Class of 2018 has recorded the fourth highest enrolment of full-time candidates and the highest for part-time candidates in the history of the basic education system in South Africa. Twelve new subjects including sign language as a home language; civil, mechanical and electrical technologies among others were introduced.
Performance of the provinces
Gauteng came out as the top performer with an achievement of 87.9 per cent, an improvement of 2.8 per cent from 2017.
Out of the 10 top achieving districts, the province bagged eight.
As the largest province to improve, the Eastern Cape joined the ’70 performance club’, after it achieved a 70.6 per cent pass rate.
The province increased its pass rate by 5.6 per cent from 2017.
The matric pass rate per province
• Free State achieved 87.5 per cent
• Western Cape achieved 81.5 per cent
• North West achieved 81.1 per cent
• Mpumalanga achieved 79 per cent
• KwaZulu-Natal achieved 76.2 per cent
• Northern Cape achieved 73.3 per cent
However, Limpopo is at the bottom of the list being the only province to achieve a pass rate of below 70 per cent.
The province achieved a pass rate of 69.4 per cent, an improvement of 3.8 per cent from 2017.
Motshekga congratulated Gauteng and MEC Panyaza Lesufi for having raised the bar of the number and percentage of passes with distinctions, and the performance of learners with special educational needs.
Progress learners
The Basic Education Minister said Gauteng had the highest rate of progressed learners who passed matric, at 70.3 per cent, while the Western Cape is the lowest at 33 per cent.
The Free State’s rate of progressed learners who passed matric is at 65.2 per cent; Mpumalanga 64.7 per cent; KwaZulu-Natal 63.4 per cent; North West 56.9 per cent; the Eastern Cape 56.5 per cent and the Northern Cape is at 40.2 per cent. Limpopo’s results have not yet been released.
Motshekga praised the department’s ‘package of support and interventions’ to ensure that learners do not fall through the cracks of the system.
The minister also announced that about 157 000 distinctions were achieved in 2018. The main contributors towards the distinctions achieved were KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo.
The number of candidates who qualified for admission for bachelor studies is at
172 000, which represents 33.6 per cent of the total number of learners who wrote the 2018 examinations.
Learners with special education needs and poor schools
The number of learners with special educational needs who wrote the NSC Examinations increased by 39.9 per cent from 2017. About 3 000 of those learners passed with distinctions. Motshekga added that learners from ‘no fee’ schools obtained more than 80 000 distinctions and produced 53 per cent bachelor passes.
The minister concluded that despite the ‘notable stability of and improvements in the system, we are yet to cross our own Rubicon’. “We must agree that much has been achieved, but much more needs to be done in the areas of efficiency and quality.
“In celebrating the Class of 2018, I must also thank the principals, teachers, and parents for the work they continue to do. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank the oversight committees responsible for basic education, the Deputy Minister Enver Surty the MECs and the respective heads of departments for their stewardship, leadership and continued support.”
Motshekga lastly thanked the partners, teachers unions and other stakeholders in ‘ensuring the stability and improvement of the basic education sector and declaring education a societal matter’.
