No-fee Hout Bay school achieves 100% pass rate in senior certificate

All 154 grade 12 learners who sat for the 2025 matric exams at Silikamva High School, a quintile 3 no-fee school in Imizamo Yethu township, passed. Collaboration between the school and education stakeholders is said to be the reason behind the Cape Town school’s achievement. According to the Western Cape Education Department, the school achieved a bachelor’s pass rate of 76%, with 75 subject distinctions and a 100% pass rate for eight subjects including physical science.

Acting school governing body chairperson, Eric Maqam said the school’s collaboration with different NGOs was one of the critical interventions behind the positive results. “The collaboration is helping us a lot as the NGOs provide the school with resources that would have required us as parents to pay for,” he said.

Speaking to Elitsha, the Western Cape education MEC, David Maynier affirmed the same, attributing the success of the school to great leadership, discipline and collaboration with the private sector and various NGOs.

Addressing the class of 2025 and their parents, the school’s principal, Siphathisiwe Nkala-Nkohla thanked the learners and teachers for their dedication and “believing in the dream of achieving a 100% pass rate”.

Girl learners lead

Nine of the top 10 performing learners at the school are girls. 17-year-old Wandisa Gxaba, who stays with her father, said that she has applied to study business management at the University of Johannesburg. Gxaba is number two on the top 10 list even though she changed classes in the second term. “My mother is in the Eastern Cape so I stay with my father. He has supported me a lot during this time. He paid for everything that was needed. In the second term I transitioned from 12 C to 12 B from tourism class to geography and there were lots of new concepts that I had to learn, but my teacher helped me a lot,” she said.

The third best learner at the school, Iviwe Lingela told Elitsha that she joined a group led by an NGO where they got extra classes and were provided a desk and a space to study, food to eat while studying and transport home. Lingela said she intends studying civil or mechanical engineering.

The first-placed matriculant, Onako Qhekeka was not feeling well, so her mother, Vuyokasi Goni represented her at the celebration. “I wasn’t expecting that she was going to do so well. I’m out of words, I’m really happy. She has made me proud and has raised the family name, and as poor as we are, with the support that we got from the school community, we are really happy,” said Goni, who works as a cashier at a retail store. “I couldn’t finish high school and I’m a single parent. It is not easy to raise a child by yourself but I afforded her all the time she needed to focus on her school work. She only did house chores after she wrote the exams.”

Principal Nkala-Nkohla reflected on the enormity of the learners’ achievement: “When we get these learners from grade 8 we are not so fortunate that we get learners who know everything or have parents that support them – we do not have that at our school. We do not have learners who come from a community where they have a mother and a father, a desk and chair to study, a bedroom where they can at least study. So, that is why you see us so excited, so happy to have achieved this.”

Impact of austerity measures in education

The overall national and provincial matric pass rates have improved according to the Department of Basic Education – despite budget cuts. In the Western Cape for example, about 2,400 teacher posts were cut and some teachers were redeployed. This, according to the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), caused instability in schools in marginalised communities. “The impact of the cuts will be felt in the next few years,” said Sadtu Western Cape secretary, Sibongile Kwazi.

MEC Maynier, on the other hand, dismissed fears of more cuts and committed to employing more teachers and building more schools.

Kwazi congratulated the class of 2025 but warned against the exhaustion of teachers and grade 12 learners. “In most marginalised areas, the grade 12 teachers work extra hours and days to ensure that learners catch up. You also have a situation where grade 12 learners are discouraged from taking part in extra-mural activities because they need to study. As a union we do not believe that is how you develop young people and how teachers should do their job,” she said.