Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announces the 2025 matric results. Photo: Department of Basic Education X account
KwaZulu-Natal province achieved the highest pass rate for the 2025 National Senior Certificate examination at 90.6%, the department of basic education said on Monday, helping nudge the national pass rate to a record 88%.
The Eastern Cape ranked lowest out of the country’s nine provinces, with a pass rate of 84.17%, below Limpopo which came in eighth place with 86.15% and Mpumalanga which was seventh with 86.55%. The Northern Cape recorded the biggest improvement, ranking sixth with a pass rate of 87.79%.
The Western Cape placed fifth with 88.2%, North West was fourth with 88.49% and Gauteng third with 89.0%. The Free State ranked second with a pass rate of 89.33%.
“Nationally, the NSC pass rate is 88% — an increase of around 0.7% from 2024.
88% is the highest pass rate in our country’s history,” Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said in a speech to announce the results.
She however urged South Africans to look beyond headline matric pass rates and reflect on what the results said about the overall health of the education system, including areas of progress and those requiring urgent intervention to strengthen equity.
The accounting pass rate declined from 81% to 78%, while that for mathematics fell from 69% to 64%. Gwarube noted. Physical sciences, however, improved from 76% to 78%.
“The 2025 results show that excellence is spreading into communities that have carried the heaviest burdens,” Gwarube said.
She noted that the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results were the second to be released under the government of national unity — led by the ANC and Gwarube’s Democratic Alliance — which she described as a national project that chose responsibility and unity over blame.
“Our system serves approximately 13.5 million learners supported by more than 460 000 educators across nearly 25 000 schools,” Gwarube said. This included hundreds of circuit officers, 75 education districts and nine provincial education departments.
“We are not in the business of quick wins or grabbing headlines, we are in transforming lives and ensuring South African children have the best future ahead of them,” she said, describing the NSC as one of the largest and most complex operations in the country, second only to national elections.
More than 900 000 candidates wrote the 2025 examinations across about 6 000 centres, with millions of scripts set, printed, written, marked, checked and quality assured.
“Where irregularities appeared they were investigated and they were dealt with immediately. Where weaknesses were found we strengthened controls and consequence management,” Gwarube said.
She dismissed the notion that 30% constituted a pass mark, calling it a myth.
“I call upon particularly elected leaders in this house and outside this house to refrain from populism. Because the danger with this is that it discourages our leaners,” she said.
Not all learners aspired to attend university, Gwarube said, noting that young people had varied ambitions and talents that were often undermined by political sloganism.
“The NSC is earned by meeting a minimum requirement across a full subject package including higher thresholds in key subjects with different pass types that open different pathways after school,” she said.
She noted that about 84% of learners reached Grade 10, but there was significant dropout between Grades 11 and 12.
“Retention matters, if learners exit the system before Grade 12 the system then is not yet delivering quality at the scale which we want regardless of how strong the final pass rate is,” she said.
While the national percentage of bachelor degree passes declined slightly from 48% to 46%, Gwarube said more candidates than ever before had achieved the required pass to enrol for a university undergraduate degree. About 45 000 learners obtained bachelor passes in 2025, an increase of 8 700 compared with the previous year.
Twenty-eight percent of candidates achieved diploma passes, while 13% of learners achieved passes that would allow them to study for a higher certificate after high school.
“This is why quality matters. It tells us not only how many learners crossed the line but how well prepared they are for what comes next,” Gwarube said.
For the first time, all 75 education districts achieved pass rates of 80% or higher.
“District performance is one of the clearest quality indicators because it shows whether improvement is spreading system wide or remains in concentrated pockets of strength,” Gwarube said.
“To every learner who did not get the results you did not hope for, you are not a failure and your story is not over. There are pathways to improve your results through rewrites, support programmes and second chance opportunities.”