With the release of the 2021 matric examination results on Friday, the weekend saw a time of celebration and reflection of another difficult academic year coming to a close.
The Western Cape has again maintained a pole position in the overall provincial results, with 81.2% overall pass rate, as announced by national Basic Education minister, Angie Motshekga.
Provincial minister, Debbie Schäfer says this is a remarkable achievement.
“Considering that this was achieved after two years of a global pandemic, makes it even more remarkable. The Class of 2021 has had a tough two years. Their Grade 11 year in 2020 was marred by school closures, with their Grade going back to class later than many others. However, their matric year has been very stable, with more time in class than in other matric years,” she says in a statement.
“What makes our performance even more impressive is that we had 6 076 extra candidates writing this year, which makes it more difficult to increase the percentage.”
Overall, the province had the highest ever percentage of Bachelors passes, at 45.3%, which is also the highest in the country.
Mathematics and Science pass rates increased by 1.6% and 2.2% respectively, with 72.4% pass rate for Mathematics and 77.1% for science.
Speaking to People’s Post about their results, matriculants had mixed emotions.
Zulfah Williams says: “I am proud of myself for completing my schooling, but I feel I could have done better.”
She adds that the pandemic has had an adverse effect on her progress, making it difficult to be entirely happy.
“I hope to study this year to become a nurse and I look forward to this next chapter,” she says.
Her message to the class of 2022 is: “Do not waste time during this year. It goes by very quickly. Stay focused and do your best.”
Alessio Marcus, Western Cape learner of the year at the National Teaching Awards also completed his matric in 2021.
“I am extremely happy with my results. I passed with a bachelors pass, a distinction and appeared in the top 5 of my school,” he says. “The challenges we faced as matriculants were quite vast. We entered into the year 2021 not knowing what to expect, purely because Covid-19 was still raging. We were still in recovery mode recovering from the year 2020 which resulted in us losing out of academic time which meant we had bear the brunt of this in our Matric Year. There were also many matriculants who went through psychological issues such as depression, anxiety etc which was inevitable as a result of the stress we were under.”
Marcus has received a few work offers and will be weighing up his options, while studying a BA in Public Administration through Unisa.
“My message to the class of 2022 is to stay driven, just know you got this. It will not be easy but it will indeed be worth it in the end. Do not wait for the middle of the year to give it your all, start working from the get go. You did not come this far, to come this far!”
Another matriculant, Zoe Jacobs says:
“I am definitely proud of myself because I worked really hard, but I know I could have done even better,” she says.
Jacobs suffered from anxiety around her school work potentially not being good enough, travelling to school and long hours and staying late for classes. These were some of the challenges she faced along with the pandemic aftermath.
“Also just having all the pressure put on you just because you are matric (was challenging). So many people expect much more from you,” she says.
She plans to study education and psychology this year.
