Newsdeck

South Africa

Meet SA’s top 2019 matriculant – Madelein Dippenaar

The class of 2019's top performer, Madelein Dippenaar, said she was "extremely shocked" when she heard she had topped the list in the 2019 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.

“I was extremely shocked, I never thought it would be possible to be quite honest and when I got the call, it was extremely unexpected – I never thought I would be in the top 10 nationally or maybe provincially,” she told the media following the official announcement.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced the class of 2019 had achieved an 81.3% pass rate – an increase from the 78.2% of 2018.

The bubbly pupil of Paarl Gimnasium High School in the Western Cape said she had always been a top academic performer.

“I have been top of my class since Grade 8. I have taken two extra subjects since Grade 10 which is German second additional language as well as visual arts at our local art school in Paarl, so I think I have been a really consistent student throughout the years,” Dippenaar said.

The Western Cape ranked fourth with an 82.3% pass rate.

In addition, the province bagged all the top performers in the quintile 5 category.

To add to this achievement, it also had the highest number of distinctions in the country, while Gauteng received the highest number of Bachelor’s passes.

The middle child of three siblings, who originally hails from the Northern Cape, Dippenaar plans to study for a BSc in biotechnology at Stellenbosch University this year.

News24

DM

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.