Nothando Khoza 18, Olwethu Ndlovu 17 and Thabiso Nteshana 17, all from Velabahleke High School in Umlazi, ae delighted to have done exceptionally well in their studies and looking forward to tertiary this year. l TUMI PAKKIES/AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY (ANA)
Johannesburg - Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga praised the 2022 matriculants as the absolute embodiment of true ambassadors of public schooling.
Motshekga announced the National Senior Certificate (NSC) pass rate at 80.1%, written by 920 000 learners. At a breakfast event in Johannesburg to formally announce the final results, Motshekga said: “In the face of adversity, you stood firm. This is a group that showed high levels of resilience.
“When the putrid smell of failure was intense, you people seemed unacquainted with the concept of failure.
“The Class of 2022 has clearly demonstrated that with all requisite support and intervention programmes, we can make it,” she added.
Her words highlighted the perseverance and difficulties that matriculants faced following the Covid-19 lockdown two years ago.
Free State led the results with a pass rate of 88.5%, while Gauteng followed with 84.4%, an increase of 1.6% from 2021. KwaZulu-Natal achieved 83.0%, Western Cape 81.4%, North West 79.8%, Eastern Cape 77.3%, Limpopo 72.1%, Mpumalanga 76.8% and Northern Cape 74.2%.
Husnaa Haffejee, from Al-Falaah College in Durban, and Kelly Prowse from Rustenburg Girls' High School in Cape Town were announced in joint first place in the 2022 NSC matric results.
Other top students from the NSC exams include Forte Secondary School’s Tshwanelo Zanele Mokooe (eight distinctions), Parktown High School for Girls pupil Tashriq Elmedany (six distinctions), Fourways High School’s Lesego Mashego (six distinctions) and Jodache Govendasamy (five distinctions) from Edenvale High School.
The Independent Examination Board (IEB) managed to obtain a 98.42% pass rate, marginally higher than the 2021 pass rate of 98.39%. 89.32% of the class of 2022 achieved a bachelor's pass.
Top IEB schools include St. John’s College (which achieved 100%), Roedean, St Cyprian’s School, Reddam House and Redhill School.
St. Benedicts College for Boys obtained a 100% pass rate for the 48th consecutive year, with top student Danny (Yan Ming) Gao producing 11 distinctions.
King David High School, Linksfield, was second with seven outstanding achievements for pupils whose matric results were in the top 5% in six or more subjects and achieved a rating level of 7 in Life Orientation.
Joseph Joffe, a student of King David, obtained nine distinctions and believed consistency and sleep helped him to succeed.
“I believe in consistent work. Consistently getting down, sitting behind my desk every day and eventually, by the time of exams, it’s not a mountain of work that I have to do. It’s just the last bit of revising.
“The hardest part was managing all the other extra-murals, because there’s so little time to do a little bit every day,” he said.
Another student of the school, Alexa Katz, obtained eight distinctions. “There was an element of relief, because the work that went into my matric was insane. There was much preparation involved, and dedication, which I do think was a very important skill that I learnt.
“There were some sad elements to it. I was sad to leave the environment where I was so happy with my teachers. I had the most incredible relationship with some of my teachers. It was really a good environment at my school.”
Reddam House Bedfordview’s Rushir Kamil obtained nine distinctions, along with Shayna Smith, Nabila Patel and Jaime Rademeyer. Kamil was over the moon with his results.
“At first I was in shock. I couldn’t believe I could achieve this but the hard work does actually pay off, so I’m happy right now. It was nerve-wracking but exciting.”
IEB CEO Anne Oberholzer praised the cohort of students who recovered from the impact of the lockdown and an absence of social interactions.
"The IEB congratulates the candidates, their teachers and parents for a job extraordinarily well done," she said.
While Motskekga called for the country to share her praises for the matriculants’ efforts, opposition parties felt the NSC matric pass rate didn’t accurately reflect the state of education in South Africa.
The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) MP Baxolile Nodada said the “real” matric pass rate was only 54.6%. Nodada said the party calculated the “real” results based on the number of pupils who dropped out and never made it to matric.
The 45.4% fail rate and a high dropout rate of 31.8 % (337 364 learners) were highlighted as particularly concerning.
“What makes the national 45.4% fail rate and high dropout rate particularly concerning is that many of those learners contribute to the country’s staggering youth unemployment of 59.6% (six in every 10 young South African is unemployed).
“A little over 3.5 million youth are not in education, employment or any form of skills training,” Nodada said.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said that although the effort of the 2022 class was commendable, the party criticised the Department of Basic Education for boasting about the perseverance and resilience of the matric students.
“The feat by these young people, particularly those who have not been afforded the luxuries that come with separate development and that is entrenched by the IEB, is both inspiring and saddening, as no young person should pursue education through difficult and dehumanising conditions,” the EFF said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated the matric class of 2022 for their “outstanding individual and collective performances” despite the difficulties brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, periods of social unrest and load-shedding.