By Amy Musgrave
President Cyril Ramaphosa has commended the matric Class of 2024 for multiple achievements, including getting the highest pass rate in the history of the country.
The national pass rate for the National Senior Certificate increased from 82.9% in 2023 to 87.3% last year. And nearly half of the learners who wrote the exams received a Bachelor pass, while almost 320,000 distinctions were obtained.
“The achievements of the Class of 2024 are a proud contribution to and evidence of our progress as a nation during 30 years of freedom and democracy,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.
“These results reinforce our resolute development of our nation’s most valuable resource, our young people. They also provide proof that we are undoing apartheid’s planned legacy of intergenerational indignity, disadvantage and poverty for the majority of South Africans.”
The president said that the results demonstrated the agency, resilience and pride of the youth of creating a better future for themselves and for the rest of the country.
He said learners, teachers and parents or caregivers deserved the country’s appreciation, alongside school governing bodies, partners in the private sector, trade unions and academia.
The doors of learning have swung wide open and South would celebrate each new generation that passed through these doors successfully, Ramaphosa said.
“As government and our partners in civil society, we must all work together to ensure that learners such as the Class of 2024 are able to take up as many opportunities as we can create for them to succeed.
“This must include the space and inspiration for young people to set their own course as entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors and other embodiments of creativity and self-reliance.
“The achievements of the Class of 2024 must also sharpen our resolve to attend to challenges affecting the education sector and our economic performance. We are confident the Class of 2024 will itself produce some of the answers to these challenges,” he said.
All provinces recorded pass rates above 84%, with the Free State leading at 91%, while the Northern Cape showed the most improvement, surging by 8.3% from 2023 to 84.2%.
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