Eastern Cape Education MEC, Mandla Makupula, and Premier Phumulo Masualle, honoured the Eastern Cape's top matriculants at a presentation ceremony in East London on Friday night.
The Eastern Cape achieved an overall matric pass rate of 65% in 2017, up 5.7% on 2016.
Makupula said the improvement in the overall results was a significant achievement.
Nelson Mandela Bay was the best performing education district in the Eastern Cape in 2017 with a pass rate of 72.59%.
The second best performing education district was the Sarah Baartman District, which recorded a pass rate of 71%.
MEC Makupula said they were the only two of the 12 education districts in the Eastern Cape to record pass rates of over 70%.
He said the worst performing education districts in the province were Amathole West and Amathole East, with pass rates of just 53.6% and just over 56%.
The Eastern Cape top performers were Nofitiso Reamonetse of Lehana Senior Secondary School, Abigal Anril Sieberghagen of Pearson High School and Philiso Mphoentle of Cofinvaba Senior Secondary School.
