Celebrating South Africa’s top matric learner: Rayyan Ebrahim’s journey to success
“It feels quite overwhelming and unbelievable to me to have achieved this. But I’m just so humbled and grateful to have my hard work recognised on such a high level.”
This is how the country’s top candidate, Rayyan Ebrahim, 19, from Pinelands High School, described his emotions after the announcement of the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results.
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 provided some insight into the sacrifices that came with the feat, stating that it took a few early mornings.
“Sometimes if I was going to be busy with prefect things or extra-mural activities, like 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,” Ebrahim said.
“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 okay.”
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”.
While congratulating the Class of 2024, Premier Alan Winde said that in the last eight years, the top matric candidate in South Africa has come from the Western Cape seven times.
“Our matrics have done us proud once again! Huge congratulations to Rayyan and the entire Class of 2024.”
Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier commented: “The fact that the top candidate in the country has come from the Western Cape for seven of the last eight NSCs is really a testament to our department’s vision for quality education.
“We want to see more of our learners achieving a quality matric pass like these top candidates, so that they can go on to have bright futures.”
Looking back at previous years results, the province missed out when Reynhardt Buys from Pearson High School in Port Elizabeth was the top matriculant in South Africa in 2020.
Other top matriculants were Melissa Muller from Rhenish Girls’ High for 2023, Kelly Grace Prowse from Rustenberg Girls’ High School for 2022 (she tied with Husnaa Haffejee from al-Falaah College in KwaZulu-Natal), Ultrich le Roux from Paarl Boys’ High School in 2021, Madelein Dippenaar from Paarl Gymnasium High School in 2019, Justine Crook-Mansour from Rustenberg Girls’ High School in 2018, and Janke van Dyk from Bellville High School in 2017.
Muller, from the Class of 2023, said that she just finished her first year studying Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch, and is excited for her second year. She said that seeing the new wave of NSC announcements has left her overwhelmed with nostalgia, but that the top stop also comes with its challenges.
“I cannot believe that it has been a year since I was the one standing on that stage. At the time, I felt immense pride at what I had accomplished. I am thrilled for these top matriculants.
“Along with the success of being the top matriculant, comes a lot of high expectations. Being the top matriculant gave me the confidence boost I needed going into university, and I learnt a lot of important lessons during the weeks that followed the announcement,” Muller said.
“However, since I was able to achieve such success in school, I felt additional pressure to excel at university. Most of this pressure was internal, but at times I felt that people looked to me to know what to do. This sometimes caused me a lot of stress, because I was also experiencing university for the first time, and was also unsure of how to approach things at times.”
Prowse, from the Class of 2022, is going into her third year of Actuarial Science at the University of Cape Town. She said she is currently in the process of changing to Quantitative Finance with the hope of including some law subjects too, to allow her to tap into a second interest.
Speaking of this week’s NSC ceremony, Prowse said she had the same feeling of nostalgia as Muller, but also uses it as motivation.
“I watch the NSC results presentation as a chance to get inspired. A chance to revive my optimism. I guess it reminds me that hard work and grit is not in vain, and that it really does pay off.
“The 2023 and 2024 matriculants will be my peers in the workplace, so seeing such incredible results makes me excited about the bright minds I’ll hopefully be lucky enough to work alongside in the future,” Prowse said.
“Having done so well in matric has definitely provided me with some incredible opportunities and connections that I definitely wouldn’t have gotten without such achievements. So in that way, yes, my achievements certainly set me up for success.
“However, doing well in anything obviously creates some expectations that are often very hard to maintain. So the assumption is that you’re too smart to slip up, you’re too smart to get a bad result. People expect you to maintain this level of high achievement.”
Madelein Dippenaar, from the Class of 2019, said that after finishing her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at Stellenbosch, she completed her Honours degree in Genetics.
“My love for and enjoyment of the research environment, along with the opportunity it provided to continuously expand my knowledge of molecular biology, led me to pursue a Master’s degree. So, currently, I am a second-year Master’s student specialising in Genetics (MSc Genetics) at Stellenbosch University.”
Reflecting on her moment as the top learner, Dippenaar said that it was so big, and “everything was so extremely busy that it’s nice to be able to reflect on that time now and remember it fondly”.
“The magnitude of the situation was a lot to take in, so at times everything felt quite rushed. It was also the first time I ever experienced any kind of press or media, so that in itself was a challenging new experience,” Dippenaar said.
“All in all, I don’t think there is anything specific I would have done differently. But I would have loved it if there had been more time to pause and appreciate the moment, to really take it all in and express how thankful I was.”
She echoed comments made by Prowse stating while the spot came with amazing opportunities, and a chance to leave a legacy, it “was also a bit of a struggle dealing with the added pressure at the beginning of my university career”.
“The increased name recognition during my first year of undergrad was definitely an adjustment for me, and a lot of people used to make comments. Although most were very positive and encouraging, I remember that at times it was quite overwhelming.
“Over time, I came to realise that I should view the situation more as a testament to what I can accomplish, rather than trying to compete with my past self or live up to the expectations others might have of me,” Dippenaar said.
She added advice for the Class of 2025, and those seeking to be the top learner for the year, that it is important to find what works for them
“People learn in different ways and at different speeds. Don’t get so caught up in what others are doing or how they are doing it. Constantly competing with everyone around you is really exhausting and draining, and it makes it harder for you to appreciate yourself and all the amazing things you have accomplished. It’s important to stop and smell the proverbial flowers along the way — after all, it’s your last year of high school.”
theolin.tembo@inl.co.za