Social grant beneficiaries who were part of the 2022 matric cohort have shown an impressive increase in performance in all provinces. This comes amid difficult circumstances, including the Covid-19 pandemic and rolling power cuts.
The Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu, has congratulated all the social grant beneficiaries who sat for the 2022 matric final exams.
In a statement released on Monday, the department noted that the results on the performance of the 2022 grant beneficiaries who wrote the 2022 NSC examination show an impressive increase in performance between the years, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, across all nine provinces.
The overall increase now sits at 8.7 percentage points from 0.2 % in 2020/2021.
“We want to take this opportunity to encourage the learners who did not pass to remain hopeful and not panic or give up on their dreams. It is during this period that families and friends should show support,” said Minister Zulu.
She also encouraged those whose results were not as good as expected not to give up as many opportunities are still available for them to succeed.
According to the department, the ranking of the social grant beneficiaries performance by province sees Gauteng Province as the best performing province with 81.59%.
Followed by the Free State (76.19%), KwaZulu-Natal (75.73%), North West (74.19%), and Northern Cape (71.23%).
The department also noted that the provinces with similar levels of performance were the Eastern Cape (68.66%), Mpumalanga (68.49%) and the Western Cape (68.49%).
Limpopo was the province with performance below the 60% threshold at 59.65%.
The minister said that the improved academic performance highlights the critical role that social protection and pro-poor interventions play in addressing inter-generational poverty and child well-being.
“When comparing learners who were still receiving their grant (active recipients) in their matric year and those who whose grant had stopped (inactive recipients) due to their age, active social grant beneficiaries were found to have a substantially higher pass rate as compared to inactive social grant beneficiaries, with an overall pass rate of 87.20% and 75.22%, respectively,”
Therefore, has called on all Provinces to strengthen these interventions especially in rural and township areas.
Minister Zulu further extended a word of appreciation to parents, caregivers, social service practitioners, teachers, school governing bodies, and community structures who played an important role in guiding the class of 2022 to realise and achieve their dreams.
Grant beneficiaries who applied and were accepted at tertiary institutions are reminded that they will not be means tested when applying for financial assistance from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas).
