Top matric candidate Rayyan Ebrahim, 19, from Pinelands High School, and his parents alongside the Education MEC David Maynier. Picture: WCED
THE country’s top matriculant, Rayyan Ebrahim, 19, from Pinelands High School has shared his tips to get top marks.
Ebrahim’s achievements were honoured on Monday evening when the Department of Basic Education announced the national pass rate of 87.3% for the Class of 2024 - the highest in the history of the country.
In the Western Cape, the 2024 cohort excelled with a matric pass rate of 86.6%, which is a 5.1 percentage point increase on last year’s pass rate and the province’s highest NSC pass rate ever.
Four Western Cape matrics received awards on Monday evening, including the top candidate in the country, which went to Ebrahim.
He said it’s all about balance and making the time to get in that extra bit of work and study.
He says: “Sometimes if I was going to be busy with prefect things or extra-mural activities.
“I did cross country at school, then I would wake up sometimes an hour before school or an hour before I would have to get ready for school to just accommodate an extra study session, and meet my goals of doing a certain number of past papers in a week.
“I always thought that if you really want to get good marks, then the more time you spend studying, the better the marks you will get, but sometimes you just have to prioritise balance over the number of study hours.
“I think I would have maybe paced myself a bit more at the start of the year, especially in the June exams, because that's really the first of three sets of exams in matric.
“So I think I would have just told myself to just, you know, ‘take failure in your stride’. If you’re not reaching your goals yet, that’s OK.”
Ebrahim shared that he plans on studying Data Science at the University of Cape Town, and that he chose it because it combines “my passion for maths, computer science and business”.