Pass Rate for Matric 2021

On the 20th January, the Basic Education Minister – Angie Motshekga – announced that the pass rate for Metric 2021 was 76.4%.

This was a 0.2% improvement from the previous 2020 pass rate of 76.2%. The 2019 Matric pass rate was 81.3% but those were the last candidates  to write exams before the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic struck.

When announcing the new pass rate, Motshekga reminded those that the NSC pass rates have been consistently increasing over the last 10 year, from 60% in 2009, to now above 70% in the last couple of years. Even with the huge challenge of studying during a pandemic, the class of 2021 were still able to maintain the above 70% pass rate and should be commended.

With 733,198 full-time candidates tacking metric exams in 2021, it was the largest class in the history of these exams.

The pass rates for Matric across the nine provinces were:

• Free State: 85.7% (improvement of 0.6%)
• Gauteng: 82.8% (decline of 1%)
• Western Cape: 81.2% (improvement of 1.3%)
• North West: 78.2% (improvement of 2.0%)
• KwaZulu-Natal: 76.8% (decline of 08.%)
• Mpumalanga: 73.6% (decline of 0.1%)
• Eastern Cape: 73% (improvement of 4.9%)
• Northern Cape: 71.4% (improvement of 5.4%)
• Limpopo: 66.7% (decline of 1.5%)

Five out of the nine provinces saw an improvement in pass rates. The most rural provinces of Limpopo, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal produced a combined total of 121,312 bachelor passes which was a significant improvement of 26.6% since 2020.  They also produced 88,072 diploma passes between them, an improvement again of 23.1% from 2020.

The entire class of 2021 produced 211,725 distinctions, which was an increase of 19.3% from the 2020 pass results.

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