The Sky is the limit: Celebrating with the stars is Dr Tate Makgoe MEC of Education (center), Ethan Anthony Travers from St Andrews High School, the best learner in the Free State province (L) and Molelekeng Annah Mokoena from a quintile 1 school, Tsebo Secondary School and best Physical Science learner in the country.

Once again, the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) celebrated the top 100 class of 2018 learners with the Free State Department of Education at the Well-Done function, held annually to celebrate the top performing students from various schools around the province. The matric class of 2018 worked hard to achieve optimum results during the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, attaining the second position out of the nine South African Provinces, with an overall pass rate of 87.5% including progress learning.

In 2018, 29 209 candidates registered for the National Senior Certificate exams and only 24 914 wrote the exams. Of the 87.5 % pass rate, 37.5% learners achieved bachelors while 33.20% received diplomas. Amongst the top performing students are Ethan Anthony Travers from St Andrew High School in Bloemfontein and a Quintile 1 school learner, Molelekeng Annah Mokoena from Tsebo Secondary School in Phuthaditjhaba.

Free State MEC of Education, said that despite the second position held, there is a slight improvement of 1.4% from last years’ results. “Technically, we are in position one as we have achieved 91.1% excluding progress learners. This implies that we did not do enough to support these learners because if we did, the 0, 4% would not have affected us.”

Dr Makgoe said he is proud of how matric results had improved since his tenure in 2009 when Free State was standing at 69.4%. “I am proud that ten years later we are at 87.5%, a definite highlight of my career.”

He acknowledged all the stakeholders in education for joining hands in ensuring success in education. “I would like to thank all stakeholders for driving Free State province to success. This achievement has been a joint effort from the beginning.” He further encouraged the successors to work twice as hard as other provinces are working harder to close the gaps.

Prof. Henk de Jager, Vice-Chancellor and Principal said that CUT is making an effort to contribute towards supporting young people to pursue their dreams. He said that CUT would be offering full scholarships to 10 of the top 100 students who would like to pursue their studies in Engineering, Science and Mathematics programmes at CUT.

He further applauded the Free State Department of Education for showing confidence in the university to host this event. “Over the years, it has been a huge privilege and honour for CUT to be associated with the Free State Department of Education. I wish to commend the MEC and HoD of education for showing confidence in the university as an important partner in education to host this auspicious function once again on our campus. We stand confidently here to say all the role players in education have made our province a real winner and the first province that broke the national threshold of 90% should we exclude the progress learners. Although we missed the overall number one spot with only 0.4%, we are still the top performing province, he concluded.”

Prof. Henk de Jager, Vice-Chancellor and Principal congratulating class of 2018 for putting the Free State Province on the map once again.