At the ceremony held at the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that learners with special educational needs achieved a total of 653 distinctions.
Addressing Monday’s event, the Basic Education Minister stated that out of the 2 161 learners with special education needs who enrolled for the NSC exams, 2 058 wrote the examinations.
Motshekga announced that 1 757 learners with special educational needs passed the 2020 exams.
943 of these learners achieved a Bachelor's pass and 582 learners achieved a Diploma pass. Meanwhile, 204 obtained Higher Certificates while 28 received NSC passes.
During 2020, a total of 725 034 candidates registered for the 2020 exams of which 607 226 were full-time candidates, and 117 808 were part-time candidates.
According to the Minister, "there was 75.8% girls, and 76.7% boys who passed the 2020 NSC exams." However, more girls than boys wrote the exams.
More girls than boys achieved Bachelor and Diploma passes, as well as passes with distinctions.
These distinctions include passes with distinction in critical subjects such as Accounting, Business Studies, Economics, Mathematics, and Physical Science.
Even though 2020 was a tough year for matrics, these learners managed to maintain the above 70% pass rate seen in recent years.
The 2020 NSC achieved an overall pass rate of 76.2%, which is a decline of 5.1% from the record pass of 81.3% achieved by the Class of 2019.
Motshekga praised the high quality passes achieved this year, particularly the number of Bachelor and Diploma passes, the overall pass mark, and the passes with distinctions, even in critical subjects.
The Minister announced that the learners who wrote the exams characterised the resilience of the system, “which withstood an unprecedented test of administering an examination of the largest number of candidates; faced by the worst pandemic in human history”.
The government with its education departments and its strategic partners, worked very hard to strike a balance between saving lives and the 2020 academic year.
