The official matric pass rate for South Africa for 2022 is 80.1%, up from 2021’s 76.4% pass rate.
On January 19, 2022, the results were revealed by the basic education minister, Angie Motshekga.
In a previous technical briefing, Hubert Mathanzima Mweli, director-general of the education department, said that 834,565 pupils took the 2022 National Senior Certificate exams this year.
Around 87% (725,146) of these applicants were full-time job seekers.
Motshekga said 922,034 matrics registered to take the exams this year.
Motshekga said 278,815 matrics achieved a bachelor’s pass, 197,357 (26.7%) achieved a diploma pass, and 14.9% (108,159) achieved a higher certificate pass.
The class of 2022 is the matric group that faced the brunt of the Covid–19 pandemic, beginning with their grade 10 year in 2020.
Although South Africa’s most stringent lockdown measures were lifted by the end of 2021, it only exited its state of disaster in March 2022.
Students wrote their first 2022 matric examinations on 31 October, and the last exam was scheduled for 7 December.
Education quality council Umalusi revealed this week said some irregularities were detected during writing and marking, but these were not systemic and did not compromise the overall credibility and integrity of the exams.
Where irregularities were found, Umalusi instructed the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to block the results of those candidates.
This includes candidates implicated in alleged acts of dishonesty, pending the outcome of the DBE investigations and verification by Umalusi.
Umalusi apologised for errors found in question papers, stating that such mistakes cannot be justified and are regrettable.
“Umalusi wishes to apologise profusely for these errors in question papers,” said CEO Dr Mafu Rakometsi.
“The South African public must find comfort in the fact that Umalusi, as a Quality Council, has tried and tested methods to remedy the situation, where such unfortunate errors are detected late in the question paper,” he said.
“Our tried and tested approaches ensure that no learner is disadvantaged by the error in the question paper. Mitigating measures are implemented either during marking or during the standardisation meetings.”
Provincial pass rates
Motshekga announced the matric pass rates for South Africa’s nine provinces as follows:
- Free State — 88.5%
- Gauteng — 84.4%
- KZN — 83%
- Western Cape — 81.4%
- North West — 79.8%
- Eastern Cape — 77.3%
- Mpumalanga — 76.8%
- Northern Cape — 74.2%
- Limpopo — 72.1%
%20(1).png)
