Anna Louisa Smit, an 18-year-old student at Hoërskool Bellville, achieved a 97.1% in her final National Senior Certificate examination last year.
After noticing that her Afrikaans subject mark didn’t quite align with her usual performance in the subject, her academic adviser recommended a re-mark. Taking the recommendation seriously, Smit decided to have all her marks reassessed, and her final average soared to an impressive 98%.
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Alise, as she’s affectionately known, told News24 that while she didn’t secure a spot among the top three achievers in the country, she was still incredibly proud of her results. In the overall matriculation results announced earlier that year, the class of 2022 achieved an 80.1% pass rate, marking an improvement compared to the previous year’s 76.4%.
Anna’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed, as she secured the fourth spot in the Western Cape rankings. Her mother, Mariet, took the initiative to inquire with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) about the possibility of a final national ranking based on the revised marks. While they discovered that such a scenario had never occurred before, they hoped for some recognition for her exceptional 98% average.
‘Through our communication, we discovered that something like this has never happened before. Even if it is with a re-mark, we still felt very strongly that for an average of 98%, there should be some recognition, even if it could just be some certificate,’ Mariet said.
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The WCED maintained that the original ranking was accurate, and WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond confirmed that Anna had indeed secured the fourth position in the province for her matriculation results.
Although the reassessment process didn’t alter Anna’s overall ranking in the fourth position in the province, she couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if her revised marks had been her original ones.
‘I was grateful to have made it to the provincial top achievers’ list. But after the re-mark, I was slightly disappointed when thinking about what could have happened if those had been my original marks and that I would have made the national top achievers’ list,’ she told News24.
Undeterred, Anna is pursuing her dream of becoming an actuary and is currently studying actuarial science.
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Picture: MChe Lee / Unsplash