Matric results: Here are 2021’s best – and worst

The Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announced the matric results for the class of 2021 on Thursday evening, 20 January. There was a slight improvement on the previous year – with the pass rate moving from 76,2% in 2020 to 76,4% in 2021.

MATRIC RESULTS FOR 2021

Motshekga said 897 163 learners enrolled to write the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination, including 163 965 part-time candidates and added that the Class of 2021 kept the trend of improving pass rates going.

READ MORE: 36,% of learners achieved admission to Bachelors studies, second only to the percentage achieved in 2019. While 25,2% of learners achieved admission to diploma studies and 14,8% attained admission to study towards a higher certificate.

As per tradition, the education minister highlighted the best performing provinces.

PROVINCIAL PERFORMANCE

1. Free State was the best performing province with a 85,7% pass rate – improving with 0,6% from 2020.
2. Gauteng came in second with 82,8% – dropping by 0,1% from 2020.
3. Western Cape was third with 81,2% – it improved by 1,3% on 2020.
4. North West achieved fourth place with 78,2% – achieving the third highest improvement on 2020 with 2,0%
5. KwaZulu-Natal was fifth with 76,8% – it declined by 0,8 from 2020.
6. Mpumalanga was sixth at 73,6% – a decline of 0,1% from 2020.
7. The Eastern Cape achieved seventh place with 73,0% – it had the second best improvement with 4,9% on 2020.
8. The Northern Cape finished second last with 71,4% – it had the biggest improvement with 5,4%  on 2020.
9. Limpopo finished ninth with 66,7% – it declined by 1,5%.