Which province has the best pass rate? It's complicated

The Free State came top in the matric results‚ with the highest number of passes but a closer look at results shows the best quality passes came from the Western Cape.

When Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announced the matric results on Friday‚ she congratulated the Free State province's MEC Tate Mekgoe and his team for their achievement.

But‚ according to the Department of Education's examination report‚ also released on Friday‚ Western Cape pupils got the most distinctions.

This is how the provinces fared:

• The Western Cape got the highest percent - 39.1% - of bachelor passes‚ formerly known as exemptions, which qualify pupils to be accepted at universities.
• In second place was Gauteng with of 36% of all passes allowing university applications.
• The Free State got 35.1% of passes allowing pupils to apply for university. The province had the highest percentage of diploma passes‚ which qualify pupils to attend universities of technology.
• In fourth place was KwaZulu-Natal‚ with 28.7% of pupils achieving bachelor passes..
• In the North West‚ 26.9 % of pupils achieved bachelor passes.

The rural provinces had much lower scores:

• In the Northern Cape‚ 25.2% of pupils qualified to go to university.
• In Mpumalanga‚ 23.4% of pupils achieved bachelor passes.
• The Eastern Cape came in second last with 22.7%.
• Limpopo had the lowest number of bachelor passes at 21% of pupils who wrote matric.

A bachelor pass requires a home language pass of 40%‚ at least 50% for four subjects and at least 30% for two subjects.