South Africa’s matric class of 2024 has achieved a record-breaking 87.3% pass rate, marking a significant improvement from the previous year. Despite having the lowest pass rate at 84.2%, the Northern Cape is the most improved province, surging by 8.3% from 2023.
THE MATRIC Class of 2024, which Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has likened to South Africa’s national flower the protea, achieved an 87.3% pass rate. This is a significant increase from 82.9% achieved in 2023.
Gwarube was speaking at Mosaic Church in Johannesburg during the release of the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results on Monday evening.
“This is the highest matric pass rate in the history of our country and should be a moment of great pride and celebration for all of us,” Gwarube said.
The minister said several factors impacted on the pass rate, including subject choice changes, shifts to part-time candidature and movements to TVET colleges from Grade 10.
Gwarube said that provincially, every province improved on its performance from 2023, and every province achieved a pass rate above 84%:
- The Free State is the best performing province at 91.0%, increasing its pass rate from 89.0% in 2023.
- KwaZulu-Natal is at number 2 with a pass rate of 89.5%, marking an increase of 3.2% from 2023.
- Number 3 is Gauteng, which increased its pass rate from 85.4% in 2023 to 88.4% in 2024.
- North West ranks number 4 with 87.5%, up 5.9% from 2023.
- The Western Cape is at number 5 at 86.6%, representing a 5% increase from 2023.
Gwarube said three provinces received a rounded off pass rate of 85%. However, they are ranked according to the highest raw percentage points achieved:
- Limpopo is number 6 with a 85.01% pass rate. This represents an increase of 5.5% from 2023.
- Mpumalanga with a pass rate of 84.99% is at number 7 – a significant increase of 8% from 2023.
- The Eastern Cape achieved a pass rate of 84.98% and comes in at number 8 with a 3.6% increase from 2023.
- The Northern Cape is number 9 with 84.2%.
“It is also important to add that the Northern Cape is the most improved province. It surged by 8.3% from 2023,” stated Gwarube.
“No-fee schools improved their pass rate from 81% in 2023 to 85.8% in 2024. This, too, is another sign that our schooling system is maturing.”
On education districts, Gwarube said these improved their 2023 performance.
“Johannesburg West is the top performing education district with a pass rate of 97%, followed by the Fezile Dabi education district in the Free State with 93.5% in second position and the uMkhanyakude education district in KwaZulu-Natal in third position with 92.8%,” Gwarube said.
She also said that 73 out of 75 districts obtained pass rates higher than 80%.
Gwarube added that Quintiles 1 to 3 pupils made significant gains, reflecting the success of initiatives such as the National School Nutrition Programme and extra tuition support during school holidays.
“However, the performance gap between quintiles remains a concern and we will redouble our efforts to close it.”
Gwarube said nearly half of the pupils who wrote the NSC exams received a Bachelor pass. She said 47.8% of candidates qualified for admission to Bachelor studies, which is a significant improvement from last year’s 40.9% and represents the highest number of Bachelor passes in recent history.
“This is a 6.9% increase from last year.
“In 2024, I am pleased to announce that KwaZulu-Natal achieved the highest number of Bachelor passes with 84,470, followed by Gauteng with 66,979 and the Eastern Cape with 45,662,” Gwarube said.
“I am also incredibly encouraged by the fact that approximately 67% of the Bachelor passes achieved in 2024 came from Quintile 1 to 3 schools, which are typically found in our poorer communities. This percentage represents an increase from 2023.”
On distinctions, Gwarube said the Class of 2024 achieved an impressive number of 319,651 distinctions, an increase of over 65,000 distinctions from last year. Some of these increases were seen in key subjects, including Mathematics.
She said every province increased the number of distinctions achieved in 2023.
“KwaZulu-Natal was once more the top performing province in terms of the percentage of candidates obtaining distinctions, with 10.8% distinction potential achieved,” Gwarube said.
“Coming in second with 6.3% of distinction potential achieved was the Western Cape, followed by Gauteng with 5.3%.
“Notable progress was made by Mpumalanga and Limpopo in this regard, where we saw this percentage increase by over 1% in 2024 when compared to the results for 2023.”
Looking ahead to the 2015 schooling year, Gwarube said she has committed the Department of Basic Education to the following priorities and called on all their partners in education to work with them to achieve these:
- Expanding access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD).
- Improving teacher support and development in the Foundation Phase.
- Improving post provisioning for the Foundation Phase.
- Strengthening curriculum delivery in the Foundation Phase.
- Protecting teaching and learning time.
