Bay district earns ‘A-club’ status with matric pass rate of 81.3%

The Nelson Mandela Bay teaching district made history by becoming the first district in the Eastern Cape to earn a spot in the coveted “A-club” with an overall pass rate of 81.3%, up by 5.3 percentage points from 2018.

The district’s class of 2019 made up of 63,795 pupils, also took pole position in terms of bachelors’ passes at 39.2% and distinction pass rates at 4.5%.

The region was followed in all three cases by the Buffalo City Metro district with an overall pass rate of 77.9%, bachelors pass percentage of 37,4% and a distinction pass rate of 4.4%.

Education MEC Fundile Gade presented the provincial breakdown of the 2019 matric results during a media briefing at the Mandla Makupula Education Institute in East London.

The MEC applauded the efforts made by pupils, teachers and stakeholders in the Bay for achieving what education minister Angie Motshekga had referred to as “A-club” status.

Gade — referring to the 5.9 percentage point increase in the overall pass rate to 76.5% — said should the province continue to improve at this “whopping” rate it would just be a matter of time before the province claimed a position in the upper half of the national rankings.

“The number of schools performing below 60% reduced drastically and schools performing above 70% pass mark improved commendably well.

“Schools performing below 20% have declined from 17 to eight and schools performing between 70% and 80% pass improved from 164 to 188.

“If you look at the difference between the provinces that ranked sixth and third there is not more than a 5% increase ... if the top-performing schools continue to improve as they have we can soon be looking at that top four range as a province,” Gade said.

Three Bay schools have managed to retain a 100% pass rate for three years — Al Azhar Institute, Collegiate Girls High School and Riebeek College Girls High School.

There were no schools in the province which received 0% in 2019, the lowest performing school being Siyazama Senior Secondary School with 7.4%.