Cape Town - Spine Road High Shool in Mitchells Plain was honoured on Wednesday morning at a special ceremony for the Western Cape’s top matrics at Premier Helen Zille's residence, Leeuwenhof, on Wednesday morning.
The school achieved a 100 percent pass rate for the first time since the inception of the national senior certificate exams.
Yi-Tin Michelle Yuan from Rustenburg Girls' High took first place overall. She achieved a perfect score for history and distinctions (in the 90’s) for the rest of her subjects. In second place was Daniel Mesham from Bishops. He had a 96.6 percent average and will study mechanical engineering at UCT. Antoinette Schoeman from DF Malan High School in Bellville, who achieved 96.5 percent average, was third. She plans to study towards a BCom in actuarial sciences at Stellenbosch University.
Matriculants, their parents and principals of several schools started gathering from about 10am on Wednesday for the 2014 National Senior Certificate Awards ceremony, hosted by Education MEC Debbie Schäfer and Zille. Award categories include improvement and excellence for individual subjects and most improved public schools.
Yuan and Schoeman were also honoured by Department of Basic Education earlier this month after being ranked second and third respectively in South Africa in the category for matriculants from quintile 5 schools (the wealthiest category of schools).
Yuan has been accepted to UCT in both law and business science.
She was a school prefect, head of the retro history society and a member of the Cultural Society, among other things.
In a statement earlier this month her school said she was “an excellent role model to her peers, always leading by example” and had made an outstanding contribution to the school.
This year there was no category for the top 20 schools in the province.
Last year, Schäfer announced that the province would instead rank and award all schools that complied with the following criteria: consistent enrolment in Grade 12 for a three-year period, an overall pass rate of at least 95 percent, at least 80 percent of candidates qualifying for bachelor degree study and 60 percent passing mathematics.
She also congratulated Rhenish Girls’ High, the only public school in the province to achieve a 100 percent pass rate and 100 percent bachelor’s passes.
“To the candidates here today, I would like to congratulate you for the hard work that you have put into your studies throughout your school years,” she said.
Cape Argus