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(Image: Flickr)
Despite schooldays lost to the Fifa World Cup and a prolonged public servants’ strike, South African students writing the national matric exams in 2010 managed to score a 67.8% pass rate – a 7.2% improvement on the previous year’s result.
An elated Angie Motshekga, minister of the Department of Basic Education, announced the results on Thursday at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. The pass rate for the 2009 matric – South Africa’s school-leaving qualification – was 60.6%.
“We’d like to congratulate the class of 2010, they did us proud,” Motshekga said. “Their unrelenting determination is commendable. The class of 2010 is truly distinctive.”
Motshekga stressed the integrity of the results, saying they were a true reflection of the achievement of students and that their quality had been properly vetted by the national education quality assurance body Umalusi. “We’ve worked hard to ensure the credibility of the exams. Umalusi convened standardisation of exams on 24 December to ensure the quality of results is the same as in other years.”
The best-performing provinces were Gauteng and the Western Cape, with pass rates of 78.6% and 76.8% respectively. But all nine provinces registered a marked improvement on the 2009 results:
• Gauteng: 78.6% (71.8% in 2009)
• Western Cape: 76.8% (75.7% in 2009)
• North West: 75.7% (67.5% in 2009)
• Northern Cape: 72.3% (61% in 2009)
• KwaZulu-Natal: 70.7% (61.1% in 2009)
• Free State: 70.7% (69.4% in 2009)
• Eastern Cape: 58.3% (51% in 2009)
• Limpopo: 57.9% (48.9% in 2009)
• Mpumalanga: 56.8% (47.9% in 2009)
