Free State remains top achieving province

The the top performing province in the 2017 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results was the Free State, which achieved an 86 percent pass rate, down by 2.2 percent from 2016, Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga said on Thursday.

Amongst the provinces that achieved a pass rate above 80 percent were Gauteng which achieved 85.1 percent, the same pass rate as in 2016 and Western Cape achieved 82.7 percent, a decline of 3.2 percent from 2016.

“Four provinces achieved above 70 percent, and these are – KwaZulu-Natal achieved 72.8 percente, improving by 6.4 percent from 2016 – the largest improvement in the country; Mpumalanga achieved 74.8 percent, a decline of 2.3 percent from 2016; Northern Cape achieved 75.6 percent, a decline of 3.1 percent from 2016; North West achieved 79.4 percent, a decline of 3.1 percent from 2016,” Motshekga said.

She said that the two provinces attained lower than 70 percent, were Eastern Cape which achieved 65 percent, an improvement of 5.7 percent from 2016, the second largest improvement in the country; while Limpopo achieved 65.6 percent, up by 3.1 percent from 2016.

“We can see that the 2017 NSC examination results with progressed learners, dispel the myth that progressed learners adversely affect the overall results,” the minister said.

“Certainly, this was not the case, particularly in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Limpopo.  In fact, in KwaZulu-Natal, the results with progressed learners included, are better than those without the progressed learners.”

Motshekga praised the improvement of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, saying: “Three years ago, we had declared that we would continue to pay particular attention to the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, so that we can improve the overall performance of our learners through the Grades.”

“The improvement in these rural provinces, is a clear indication that our pointed interventions, based on our National Strategy for Learner Attainment, have begun to bear good fruit.”

– African News Agency (ANA)

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