By BAKANG MOKOTO
14 January 2025- The Northern Cape Premier, Zamani Saul said his government has recorded a number of milestones in 2024. Saul, who delivered a keynote address during the release of provincial 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results on 14 January 2025 in Kimberley.
He further said as a province, they received the highest number of clean audits, 8 clean audits in total. Saul added that they have achieved this by putting proper systems in place in an effort to enhance accountability and transparency.
“We also managed to create a huge number of jobs last year. In the first three quarters of the year, we created 27 000 jobs. This, we managed to achieve due to the initiatives rolled out by the provincial government with our key stakeholders.
“Last year, amongst our key highlights for the year is the matric results that we are celebrating here today. We broke an all-time record by receiving 84.2%. So for the provincial government, 2024 was a good year and we are working towards an even better year in 2025,” he said.
Saul said reaching many little milestones that might seem insignificant for some, but for them and the people of the Northern Cape, it is the little milestones that count. He said although they will do it again when they enter the hall, allow him to, on behalf of the Northern Cape Provincial Government (NCPG) to congratulate the top three learners and their parents for the sterling performance last year.
“Kutlo Motlhoioa (Kimberley Technical High School), Petrus Nel (Duineveld High School) and Kutlo Motshwana (Galaletsang High School). You have made us proud. We sincerely wish you well in your future endeavour and look forward to welcoming you back into the province to come and help us build a Northern Cape we are all proud of.
“Today, we can proudly state that we are reaping the rewards of years of investment into a system that we believe can change the Northern Cape. You will remember that in 2019, The Northern Cape Provincial Government (NCPG) took a conscious decision to prioritise Health and Education,” said Saul.
He said they will not be able to attain their vision of modernising, growing and making the Northern Cape a successful province, if they do not educate the young people. Saul said they went out galvanising support from their key stakeholders to help them improve the education system.
“The annual release of the matric results provides us with the opportunity to benchmark our education system against national standards. It further allows us to give recognition to our top achievers, who have excelled academically and prepare for their tertiary education.
“The Class of 2024 has done remarkably well and exceeded our expectations. This is also an indication that our education system in the province has stabilised and we are witnessing a gradual improvement in our matric results year on year,” he said.
Meanwhile, a total of 179 978 answered scripts were marked by 839 markers, 45 chief markers and 45 internal moderators. The quality assurer, Umalusi found that they have sound systems in place and the whole examination process was conducted with integrity.
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