With the 2021 Matric exam results finally out students around the country can feel proud of their work, with those in the Free State especially so as the province comes out on top with the highest pass rate.

According to an official report from the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the Free State has the highest pass rate at 85.7 percent, followed by Gauteng at 82.8 percent and Western Cape at 81.2 percent.

The Free State also had the highest pass rate for the 2020 exams at 85.1 percent, meaning that the province managed to increase that number for the following year.

The DBE has provided more information in the table below which also shows the number of students in each province and how many of them passed, which is used to work out the pass rate.

Interestingly the Free State has the second lowest number of students as 35 055, with Northern Cape claiming the fewest at 12 726.

Also interesting to consider is the type of qualifications that students in the provinces earned.

The DBE has provided another table for that which you can see below. The specific requirements for achieving each qualification can be found here for reference.

What’s promising here is the high number of students who qualified to study bachelor degrees. This qualification is the highest in every single province, which is a real achievement.

In this area the Western Cape comes in first with 45.3 percent, followed by Gauteng at 43.8 percent and then the Free State at 39.9 percent.

These numbers are rather promising when considering the dire situation of learning in the country at the moment caused by the pandemic.

Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, congratulates the class of 2021 in the aforementioned report.

“Once again, I wish to thank parents, teachers, principals, teacher unions, communities, district and provincial officials, and social partners for carrying the Class of 2021. I believe that our unity will make us find new frontiers of cooperation and innovation. I am confident that by working together yet again, we can support the Class of 2022 in the manner that we supported their predecessors. The magnanimous act of society seeks to fulfil the Freedom Charter’s clarion call that: ‘The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be opened!’,” Motshekga writes.