Gauteng has the highest matric pass rate

Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announced the national matric results in Auckland Park, on 5 January.

“The year 2014 is the watershed year as it marked the completion of the implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) throughout the education system. It is a year when the first cohort of Grade 12 learners wrote the CAPS-aligned final examinations for the National Senior Certificate,” says Motshekga.

She said the top performing province for 2014 was Gauteng which achieved 84.7%, down from 87% in 2013, a drop of 2.3 percentage points.

“Well done to MEC Lesufi and his team from Gauteng! In terms of numbers, Gauteng contributed the highest number of candidates qualifying for Bachelor studies in 2014 at 36 843, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 35 724 and Western Cape at 18 524. The number of

Bachelor passes from Limpopo are also notable at 16 325,” commented the Minister.

The results were declared free and fair while 39 examination centres in KwaZulu-Natal are under investigation for examination irregularities, and there is also a drop in the percentage pass rate nationally.

Social media was abuzz with comments and opinions, which seem to challenge different changes that have been made by different ministers in education, since the dawn of the democratic emancipation.

• North West 84.6%, down from 87.2%, and representing a decline of 2.6 percent.
• Free State 82.8%, down from 87.4%. This is a decline of 4.6%.
• Western Cape 82.2%, down from 85.1% in 2013, a decline of 2.9 percent.
• Mpumalanga 79 %, up by 1.4 percent from 77.6% in 2013.
• Northern Cape 76.4%, up from 74.5% in 2013, an improvement of 1.9 percent, the highest improvement in 2014.
• Limpopo achieved 72.9% in 2014, up from 71.8% of 2013, an improvement of 1.1%.
• KwaZulu-Natal achieved 69.7%, a decline from 77.4% in 2013, and a drop of 7.7 percent.
• Eastern Cape achieved 65.4%, an increase of 0.5 percent from 64.9 in 2013.

Others made mockery remarks about SABC”s CEO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who made speech during the announcement, considering that he does not have the matric certificate.

Some of the twitter comments went something like this…

Congratulations to the top achievers from the Class of 2014! The late nights, sweat & tears have paid off #Matric2014 pic.twitter.com/riqCY1E5DR

— Lead SA (@lead_sa) January 5, 2015

I thought the Western Cape was “the best run Province”. How come their matric pass rate dropped so much? — Sentletse (@Sentletse) January 5, 2015

If a thief like Zuma can talk about combating corruption, why can’t Hlaudi also ventilate on the importance of a matric certificate!

— Sentletse (@Sentletse) January 5, 2015