Eastern Cape’s pass rate on the rise

The Eastern Cape’s Class of 2024 has set a new benchmark, improving the province’s overall pass rate by an impressive 3.6 percentage points.

The Eastern Cape has now managed to improve its pass rate for the fourth consecutive year.

It placed eighth overall in provincial rankings after recording an 84.98% pass rate.

In 2023, the province finished in sixth position nationally with a pass rate of 81.4%. 

The provincial Class of 2024 also increased the number of bachelor passes from about 40,000 in 2023 to 45,662 in 2024, with 36,640 distinctions and 26,153 pupils attaining diploma passes.

The overall national pass rate was also at an all-time high of 87.3%, up from 82.9% in 2023.

And 47.8%, or 337,158, of candidates qualified with Bachelor’s Degree passes, up from 40.9% in 2023.

The number of full-time candidates writing the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations increased from 691,160 in 2023 to 705,291 in 2024.

The announcements were made by basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube, who revealed the results for the 2024 NSC examinations in Randburg, Gauteng, on Monday evening.

In pole position among the provinces was the Free State with a 91% pass rate, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 89.5% and Gauteng in third with 85.4%.

In the Eastern Cape, 102,074 pupils sat for their exams, an increase from the 98,882 in 2023, across 965 exam centres. 

A jubilant Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane said the results were testimony to the hard work of the Class of 2024 and those supporting the pupils.

“I am thrilled by the significant improvement in our provincial matric results,” he said.

“This achievement demonstrates the outstanding efforts of our learners, educators and parents.

“The progress we’ve made shows that our strategies to enhance education are yielding positive results.

“I extend my warmest congratulations to the Class of 2024 on this impressive achievement.

“Your success inspires hope and pride in our province.”

Mabuyane also thanked every teacher, school administrator and support staff member for the role they played in shaping the minds of the future leaders.

ANC MPL and chair of the province’s education portfolio committee, Monde Sondaba, said the news of the record-setting matric results had him “excited and delighted”.

“This improvement shows that the systems that are in place, at the department and in our schools, are right and are bearing fruit.

“It also shows that there is a strong working culture among our pupils.

“We commend them for their efforts and we wish them all the best in this next phase of their lives.”

Sondaba said though the matric results were remarkable, they were appealing to the department not to become preoccupied with chasing good matric results but to rather broaden its focus to improve early development education.

“Matric is the last step in a 12-year journey. We need to focus on improving grade R and the early phase education, which will benefit pupils as they progress through school.

“We are not taking away anything from our matriculants, they have done amazing.

“But by improving early education, we are sure to see even better matric results in the future,” Sondaba said.

In 2004, education MEC Fundile Gade set the seemingly ambitious target of an 85% pass rate for the province.

On Monday, an elated Gade told the Daily Dispatch, The Herald’s sister publication, that they knew the target was attainable given the structures and strategies put in place by the department throughout 2024.

“We knew we would achieve or come closer to our target of 85% if you look in terms of how we have been rolling out our strategic plans since the first quarter and up until the last quarter of this year when we wrote trial examinations.

“We are one of the provinces that had mastered the art and skill of ensuring that we have an incident-free school-based assessment, and we knew that the targeted 85% [was just] a question of how are we going to qualitatively make that 85%.

Naptosa’s Eastern Cape chief executive, Loyiso Mbinda. said: “We welcome the outcome. While the target was 85%, we came very close, falling just shy of it.

“We wholeheartedly acknowledge the grit and dedication demonstrated by educators, students and parents alike.

“Their hard work has truly yielded these results.”

The Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools’ deputy chief executive, Riaan van der Bergh, said they acknowledged the hard work of the Class of 2024.

“In the face of funding shortages, inadequate infrastructure, budget cuts and other difficulties, the Class of 2024 performed exceptionally well,” he said.

“We are grateful for the improvement in the results and for the smooth running of the exams and marking process, without any incidents that could raise doubts about the integrity of the process.”

The Independent Examinations Board’s (IEB) NSC examinations also continued with their upward trajectory by achieving a 98.47% pass rate in 2024 — the highest in the last five years.

All of the 14,990 full-time and 1,314 part-time IEB candidates also qualified for tertiary level studies.

The Eastern Cape had a cohort of 640 matrics from 15 independent schools. 

Earlier in the day,  quality assurance body Umalusi gave the go-ahead for the release of the 2024 results administered by SA’s four assessment bodies.

Umalusi said no systemic irregularities had been detected in the NSC exams, but expressed concern at the almost 8% absenteeism rate among pupils with only 810,900 of the 880,209 candidates who registered to write the NSC examinations actually writing their papers.

This, while confirming 407 pupils were caught cheating during the matric exams. 

Education expert and deputy dean of the faculty of education at Nelson Mandela University, Prof Shervani Pillay, commended the matriculants on their good results, but said the figures did bring their own set of concerns as well.

“It is not so much the quantity of the matriculants that concerns me, but more the quality.

“How prepared are they really for higher education or the job market with the results they achieved?

“Or will they struggle to adapt to this new phase of life?”

Pillay said enduring problems such as lowered requirements for pass rates, and matriculants struggling to read with comprehension, were stumbling blocks that went unaddressed when the focus was placed solely on the number of pupils who passed matric.

“Yes, there is an improvement in the overall numbers, and we saw an increase in bachelor passes, but we so often see students struggling with the higher education context, which is always evolving and presenting new challenges.

“And the same goes for those not furthering their studies, who are going directly into the job market.

“Will their matric results translate to skills that can secure them jobs in a very competitive market?

“These are all questions we need to be mindful of when analysing the matric results properly,” Pillay said.

Bay education expert Prof Susan van Renburg said: “The 84.98% pass rate in the Eastern Cape is marvellous, signalling that the province has finally arrived.

“However, it raises important questions about the quality and impact of education.

“Key concerns include which subjects contributed to the high pass rate and how well-equipped students are for life after school.”

Kariega senior educational specialist for the provincial education department Marcelle Sharp welcomed the results.

“I’m pleased with the Eastern Cape’s NSC matric results of 84.98%.

“The 2024 cohort started their high school journey in 2020, right when the pandemic hit, and they’ve had to navigate countless challenges along the way.

“While there are still hurdles to overcome, I’m overall satisfied with their achievements.”

The provincial pass rate breakdown is as follows:

• The Free State is the best performing province at 91%, an increase of 2 percentage points;

• KwaZulu-Natal recorded a pass rate of 89.5%, an increase of 3.2 percentage points; 

• Gauteng increased its pass rate from 85.4% in 2023 to 88.4%;

• North West had an 87.5% pass rate, an increase of 5.9 percentage points;

• The Western Cape is at 86.6%, an increase of 5 percentage points;

• Limpopo had a pass rate of 85.01%, an increase of 5.5 percentage points;

• Mpumalanga, with a pass rate of 84.99%, showed an increase of 8 percentage points;

• The Eastern Cape achieved a pass rate of 84.98%, a rise of  3.6 percentage points; and

• The Northern Cape with 84.2%,  increase from 75.8%. — Additional reporting by DispatchLIVE

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