Johannesburg - Gauteng's improved matric performance could not have happened without the hard work and cooperation of parents, caregivers, teachers and learners, says Premier Nomvula Mokonyane.
The class of 2011 in South Africa's economic hub made the province proud by outperforming the previous matric pass rate of 78.6% and surpassing the provincial target of 80% set for 2014.
Last year's matriculants achieved a pass rate of 81.1%.
"In the past years, there has been a gradual improvement but the province's performance was plagued by a yoyo effect - one year up and one year down. In 2011, we celebrate for the first time two consecutive years of improvement.
"Gauteng achieved a pass rate of 81.1% in 2011 from 78.6% in 2010. The performance in 2009 was 71.8%. This represents an improvement of almost 10% over two years," said Mokonyane at the announcement of the provincial matric results in Johannesburg on Thursday.
According to the Gauteng Provincial Government, Mokonyane, who said she was also content with the quality of the passes achieved this year, acknowledged that this encouraging progress could not have been made without all stakeholders pulling in one direction.
"I would like to begin by congratulating all the successful candidates on the passes they have achieved. Congratulations too, to parents, caregivers and others who gave support to learners through a challenging period in their lives.
"I would also like to congratulate the officials of the national, provincial and district offices for having worked tirelessly to ensure a quality examination process and to provide the results that are of integrity and quality," she said.
Now that the results are out, the province will be finalising bursaries for those who did well.
"As you will recall, last year we gave out more than R58 million in bursaries to deserving learners. We will be doing something similar this year and urge those learners who have done well to get in touch with us for support," she said.
Those who did not fare well have been encouraged to rewrite the subjects they performed poorly in or repeat matric.
"The message that must go out to all our young people who did not do well in these exams is that they should know that it is not the end of the world; explore other avenues and you will still grow as a person," she said.
Learners who did not achieve results enabling them to study at universities have been advised to look at skilling themselves at the many Further Education and Training colleges across the province.
Mokonyane, whose province took in some 1 500 young people into its learnership programmes in 2011, said the class of 2011 should also consider learnerships as possible development programmes they can make use of.
Speaking at the same event, Education MEC Barbara Creecy said the focus last year was on consolidating the level of performance.
She hailed the Gauteng Department of Education's support programmes for adding to the quality of the matric performance, including the Extra School Support Programme launched last year.
