Pretoria — Matriculants and educators in the Northern Cape had major cause for celebration when the province recorded the best matric results for a third consecutive year today.

The province achieved a pass rate of 90.7 percent ahead of second placed Western Cape with 87.1 percent and third placed Gauteng with 81.5 percent.

Provincial Education MEC Tina Joemat-Petterson said the result was an improvement of 0.8 percentage points from 2002 when they recorded an 89.9 percent pass rate.

'These results have been achieved despite the adverse conditions of poverty and the rural nature of our province.

'It further bears testimony to the hard work, dedication and commitment of all our learners, educators, parents and officials,' she said.

A total of 6 250 candidates wrote the final examination, of which 4 441 successfully obtained a Senior Certificate without endorsement.

A further 1 227 passed with endorsement while 582 failed their final year.

Two schools in the province recorded a pass rate below 60 percent.

'These schools will be targeted for sustained support and will be prioritized for special attention,' said the MEC.

For the second year certain disadvantaged schools achieved a 100 percent pass rate.

A top learner from one such school, Hoerskool O'Kiep was Tracey-Lee De Morney who obtained four distinctions and university endorsement.

The top learner on overall aggregate was Stephan Gouws from Victoria West Combined School who scored six distinctions.