Making history, the Matric Class of 2024 has achieved an overall pass rate of 87.3%.

This is the highest matric pass rate in the history of South Africa.

An elated Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, said she was proud to announce that in 2024, 615 429 pupils passed the National Senior Certificate (NSC) – more than any other time in our history.

“South Africa’s national pass rate for the 2024 National Senior Certificate has therefore increased from 82.9% in 2023 to 87.3% in 2024,” Minister Gwarube said.

She said this was the highest matric pass rate in the history of the country and should be a moment of great pride and celebration for all.

Nearly half of pupils who wrote the NSC examinations received a Bachelor’s pass. According to the minister, 47.8% of candidates qualified for admission to Bachelor’s studies, which is a significant improvement from last year’s 40.9% and represents the highest number of Bachelor’s passes in recent history.

“This is a 6.9% increase from last year. In 2014, we produced 150 752 Bachelor passes. In just a decade this number has more than doubled in 2024 to 337 158 Bachelor passes,” Ms Gwarube said.

“It is also encouraging to see that some of our provinces with the highest numbers of learners are achieving high numbers of Bachelor passes. I am pleased to announce that KwaZulu-Natal achieved the highest number of Bachelor passes with 84 470, followed by Gauteng with 66 979 and the Eastern Cape with 45 662.”

Approximately 67% of the Bachelor’s passes achieved in 2024 came from Quintile 1 to 3 schools, which are typically found in poorer communities.

Ms Gwarube said this percentage represents an increase from 2023. This means that poorer communities are producing more and more candidates who can go on to become doctors, engineers, accountants and scientists.

The Class of 2024 achieved an impressive number of 319 651 distinctions. This, the Ministers said, represents a significant increase of over 65 000 distinctions from last year. Some of these increases were seen in key subjects, including mathematics. She said every province increased the number of distinctions achieved in 2023.

“KwaZulu-Natal was once more the top performing province in terms of the percentage of candidates obtaining distinctions, with 10.8% distinction potential achieved. Coming in second with 6.3% of distinction potential achieved was the Western Cape, followed by Gauteng with 5.3%. Notable progress was made by Mpumalanga and Limpopo in this regard where we saw this percentage increase by over 1% in 2024 when compared to the results for 2023,” said Ms Gwarube.

Every province improved on its performance from 2023, and every province achieved above 84%, she added. In 2024, 69.1% of pupils passed mathematics, which is an increase from 63.5% in 2023. However, in Physical Sciences, while 75.6% of pupils passed, this was a decrease from 76.2% in 2023.

“The improvement in performance in Mathematics is encouraging. However, the decrease in performance in Physical Sciences, highlight the urgent need to improve foundational literacy and numeracy. We need to ensure that our schooling system produces learners who are confident and capable enough to choose and excel in Maths and Science subjects throughout their schooling career,” the minister said.

In 2024, more high schools achieved a pass rate in the NSC examinations of between 80% and 100% than in 2023. In 2023, the number of high schools achieving this was 4 493 and in 2024 this number increased to 5 387, representing 77.7% of high schools. The minister also noted that the number of under performing schools has decreased.

Approximately 97% of pupils enrolled for Grade 12 in 2024 ultimately wrote the NSC exams in 2024.

“In 2024, we saw the number of full-time candidates writing the National Senior Certificate examinations increase from 691 160 in 2023 to 705 291 in 2024. We also saw the number of learners with special education needs who wrote the National Senior Certificate examinations increase from 5 288 in 2023 to 6 470 in 2024,” the minister said.

“We saw 556 726 learners who are beneficiaries of social grants writing the National Senior Certificate exams in 2024 – 12 938 more than in 2023.”

The minister added that the 2024 National Senior Certificate results for 2024 show that the schooling system was maturing, but there was still much work to be done to improve the quality of education outcomes.

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