After a rather long wait, the Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga finally announced the official matric results for 2022 on Thursday evening (19 January 2023).
While Covid-19, load shedding, and numerous service delivery protests may have impacted the education department's academic programme, the Minister said the Class of 2022 managed to bag an overall pass rate of 80.1% – an increase of 3.7% compared to the previous year’s 76.4%.
"The matric class of 2022 must be commended for maintaining this trend despite the astronomical challenges they faced – challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic, Eskom's load shedding, and sporadic service delivery protests," Motshekga said on Thursday.
According to the Minister, the 2022 class also obtained the highest number of bachelors passes attained in the entire history of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations and more than 38% of the 2022 matric cohort qualified to study further at university.
"We must say that Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal did contribute the most bachelor passes, an increase of 4.1%," said the Minister.
Pass rates for each province:
- Free State: 88.5%, an increase of 2.8% from 2021
- Gauteng: 84.4%, an increase of 1.6% from 2021
- KwaZulu-Natal: 83%, an increase of 6.2% from 2021
- Western Cape: 81.4%, an increase of 0.2% from 2021
- North West: 79.8%, an increase of 1.6% from 2021
- Eastern Cape: 77.3%, an increase of 4.2% from 2021
- Mpumalanga: 76.8%, a 2.9% increase from 2021
- Northern Cape: 74.2%, a 2.7% increase from 2021
- Limpopo: 72.1%, a 5.3% increase from 2021
The results show that none of the provinces performed below the 70% pass rate, and none had a decline when compared with the previous year.
“The provinces with the highest improvements in their performances are KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Eastern Cape,” noted the Minister.
Furthermore, Minister Motshekga also acknowledged that the dropout rate was a concern and that her department vows to address the matter and the repetition rates.
Matriculants are now able to collect their statement of results from exam centres and schools as of today (20 January 2023).
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