The day has officially arrived where the Minister of Basic Education announces the Matric results. This year’s Matric results came as a surprise when compared to the previous year’s Matric results.
The Matric Class of 2021 achieved a national pass rate of 76.4% which is an increase of 0.2% when compared to 2020. Even though 2021 Matrics were the most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, their results show their resilience.
The Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, announced the 2021 National Senior Certificate (NSC) Matric results on Thursday night.
897 163 candidates sat down to wrote the 2021 final Matric exams, an increase of 23.6% from 2020 and is the largest cohort that has written the NSC final exams. 733 198 were full-time learners, an increase of 20% from 2020, and 163 965 part-time candidates, which was an increase of 41.5% compared to the previous year.
In the Class of 2021, 276 031 Matrics, which is 36.4% of the total Matrics, got a Bachelor’s pass with Motshekga saying, “the number of Bachelor’s is the highest attained in the entire history of the NSC exams”. Almost half of these Bachelor’s passes came from Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Of the total Matric passes, 177 572 were Diploma passes, 103 122 were Higher Certificate passes and 103 Matrics passed with NSC.
211 725 distinctions were achieved, an increase of 19.3% when looking at 2020’s distinctions.
In 2021, only one province achieved below 70%. Five of our provinces performed at 70% and three performed above 80%.
As far as provincial Matric pass rates went, these are how the provinces performed:
- Free State: 85.7%
- Gauteng: 82.8%
- Western Cape: 81.2%.
- North West: 78.2%
- Kwazulu-Natal: 76.8%
- Mpumalanga: 73.6%
- Eastern Cape: 73%
- Northern Cape: 71.4%
- Limpopo: 66.7%
The Matrics of 2021 will have their Matric results released on Friday, 21 January.