The Matric Class of 2022 achieved a remarkable 80.1% pass rate, despite being the class most severely affected by COVID-19 and load shedding.
On Thursday, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced an overall increase in pass rates at the Mosaek Church in Fairlands, Gauteng, to cheers.
The National Senior Certificate (NSC) pass rate rose from 76.4% in 2021 to 77% in 2022, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year.
Motshekga observed that this group was exposed to the pandemic for two consecutive years, while they were in the tenth grade in 2020 and the eleventh grade in 2021.
“The Class of 2022 is the first cohort to write the NSC exams, post the pandemic. Exacerbating the devastation caused by the pandemic, this class was subjected to the challenges of enervating load shedding and sporadic service delivery protests.”
She emphasised, however, that despite the obstacles, the students were able to gain high-quality passes and distinctions.
Motshekga said that of the 922 034 applicants who enrolled for the Matric examinations in 2022 (with 725 146 full-time candidates) throughout the country, 278 814 earned Bachelor passes, an increase of 8.9% from 2021.
In addition, 193 357 students qualified to pursue a Diploma, 108 159 students passed the higher certificate, and 117 students passed the NSC.
“By the way, the 2022 Bachelor passes in number are the highest attained in the entire history of the NSC examinations; but the second highest to that attained in 2021 when expressed as a percentage,” the Minister said.
KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are the two provinces that produced the most Bachelor passes, with 69 849 (a 12.9% increase from 2021) and 58 119 (a 4.0% increase from 2021), respectively.
In addition, when the Minister released the long-awaited Matric results, Free State was once again deemed the best-performing province, with an 88.5% pass rate.
“We should state that none of the provinces performed below the 70% pass rate; and none had a decline when their 2022 results are compared with those of the previous year,” Motshekga said.
In addition, she said that five provinces scored over the 70% pass rate, while four provinces performed above the 80% pass rate.
KwaZulu-Natal, with a 6.2% increase, Limpopo, with a 5.3% improvement, and the Eastern Cape, with a 4.2% improvement, have the highest improved performance.
According to the Minister, there were 89 334 females who took the 2022 NSC tests, a 20.3% increase from 2021.
161 235 female applicants earned Bachelor passes, a 10.3% rise from 2021, while 117 579 male candidates earned Bachelor passes a 7% increase from 2021.
In addition, Motshekga said that the aggregate number of quintiles 1 to 3 schools, popularly known as “no fee” schools, is 387 401, an increase of 9.2% from 2021.
Bachelor passes attained by students at “no fee” institutions increased by 13.4% from 2021 to 169 903.
“The significance of this enormous and unequalled achievement is that the gap between the Bachelor passes produced by ‘no fee’ schools, versus those produced by fee-paying schools, has significantly and progressively increased from 2% in 2015 to 16% in 2020, to 24% in 2021 and 25% in 2022,” the Minister said.
She admitted that the dropout rate was a cause for worry and pledged to reduce both the dropout and repetition rates.
According to Motshekga, the number of learners completing grade 12 has increased steadily over the past years.
“It is therefore, not coincidental that 775 000 of the cohort of learners from the Class of 2022 reached Grade 12, from about 1.18 million learners who entered formal schooling in 2011,” she said, adding that 96% of these learners wrote last year’s NSC examinations.
The Minister praised a group of “happy and young” teachers, principals, support staff, and parents.
“What you do at the school level is what matters the most. The future of our learners and the prosperity of our nation, is in your hands.”
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