Free State MEC of education Tate Makgoe has declared that his province's target this year is to exceed 90% pass rate in matric results.

Makgoe was speaking after the release of the 2019 results showed that his province had wrestled the top spot from Gauteng to obtain 88,4% matric pass rate.

"Our target is to exceed 90%. However, in the meantime, we want to focus on giving our teachers support in mathematics and we also building our technical high schools, so as to be able to attract industries in our province," Makgoe said yesterday.

While Gauteng relinguished its number one spot, education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said he was thrilled by the results .

"We have never had such a great performance of township schools. Some of our schools have given us 100 percent. We have schools that are performing better than our former model C schools and I am also excited that we don't have districts that are below 80% ," Lesufi said.

The Eastern Cape, which has traditionally performed the worst among the nine provinces over the years, improved its results to move off the bottom of the pack.

Eastern Cape education HOD Themba Kojana said: "We had to find a way to develop an education system transformation plan which was led by the office of premier Oscar Mabuyane," said Kojana.