A mix of pride, joy and excitement could be felt among pupils, teachers and parents at Khayelitsha’s Joe Slovo Secondary School this week with the announcement that it had scored a 99.3% matric pass rate - the highest in the Metro East education district.

The school surprised everyone as it climbed 12.1 percentage points from the 87.2% its class of 2023 scored.

The school achieved 41 subject distinctions, including six in maths, with two candidates scoring over 90% for that subject, and three for physical science, according to Education MEC David Maynier.

The school’s maths pass rate increased from 56.5% for 2023 to 96%, physical science went from 56% to 85.2%, and the Bachelor’s pass rate - the pass needed for university entry - doubled, going from 25.1% to 56.2%

"As soon as I received the results, I knew that I needed to come here and visit the class of 2024. There is definitely something happening here, and we can all see it and feel it,“ said Mr Maynier when he visited the school on Tuesday.

“You have proved not only to your district and not only to your province but to yourself that where you live does not determine how far you go, and it does not determine how high you climb.”

Mr Maynier said 87.6% of Khayelitsha’s 2024 matrics had passed, and 49.8% of those had achieved Bachelor’s passes. That was compared to just 50.5% with a 9.3% Bachelor’s pass rate for 2009.

The improvement was thanks to hard work by school staff and pupils with support from the education district, he said.

Principal Sityhilelo Ntamo said the school had been struggling to produce good results when he had been appointed in 2020, and in that year it had only managed a 37% pass rate, putting it at the bottom of schools in Khayelitsha.

But the following year, the pass rate had climbed to 47%, and, in 2022, there had been a big improvement with a pass rate of 75%, he said.

Improving sagging staff morale and changing pupils’ attitudes had been key turn-around objectives, and he had forged strong ties with community representatives to stop the break-ins the school had been prone to, he said.

He thanked the school’s staff for being willing to move out of their comfort zones and embrace change.

The school’s top matriculant, Andrew Mgwazeni, who got five distinctions, said he was thrilled with his achievement as he had put in a lot of hard work and made an effort to expand his knowledge beyond the classroom.

He plans to study mechatronic engineering at UCT.

"I want to do this because I want to prove to my family that we could be academics, and we can achieve whatever we want to achieve.

“To this year's matriculants, I want to encourage top pupils in class to help those who are struggling and bring sunshine to them as well and not leave them behind," he said.

Joe Slovo Secondary School’s achievement mirrors an overall positive trend in the country’s matric results. The 87.3% pass rate in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams is the highest in the country’s history, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announced on Monday.

The pass rate increased 4.4 percentage points from 82.9% in 2023. It was 80.1% in 2022 and 76.4% in 2021.

And in another first, all nine provinces scored above 84% with 47.8% of matriculants earning passes good enough for university entry.

The Western Cape scored a pass rate of 86.6%, behind top-ranked Free State with 91%, KwaZulu-Natal with 89.5%, Gauteng with 88.4% and North West with 87.5%, and ahead of Limpopo with 85%, Mpumalanga with 84.99%, Eastern Cape with 84.98% and Northern Cape with 84.2%.

Mr Maynier said the class of 2024 had delivered the province’s highest NSC pass rate - a 5.1% percentage point improvement on last year.

“Thank you for the hard work that you put in to ensure you achieved your goals. You made a decision to invest in your futures, and we look forward to seeing what you will accomplish after matric.”

The Western Cape had the highest retention rate from Grade 10 to 12 in the country at 68.3%, and nearly 3 800 more provincial pupils had passed their matric exam this year compared to 2023, he said.

The province had also achieved the top maths and physical science pass rates again this year - 78% and 79.4% respectively.

Education MEC David Maynier visited Joe Slovo Secondary school to deliver their school results.

There was a buzz of excitement from the pupils and teachers at Joe Slovo Secondary School with the announcement that the school had scored a pass rate of 99.3%, the highest in the education district.