Matric Results: South Africans Stunned As Limpopo School Obtains 0% Pass Rate

• A Limpopo school was the only school in the country to record zero matric exam passes for the 2025 National Senior Certificate exam
• The Department of Basic Education released the results on 13 January 2026, and schools achieved a combined 88% pass rate
• South Africans demanded to know how the school, which had 15 matriculants, failed to produce one learner who passed the exams

Tebogo Mokwena, Briefly News’ Deputy Head of Current Affairs, contributed coverage of international and local social issues, including health, corruption, education, unemployment, labour, service delivery protests, and immigration in South Africa, during his seven years at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News.

SEKHUKHUNE, LIMPOPO — South Africans were taken aback after a high school in Limpopo obtained a 0% pass rate for the 2025 National Senior Certificate exams. This was after the Department of Basic Education revealed that the class of 2025 obtained an 88% pass rate.

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According to Schools Digest, none of the matriculants at Naledi-Ya-Meso Secondary School in Sekhukhune passed. The school, which falls under the Sekhukhune South Education District, had only 15 matriculants who did not pass.

Briefly News reached out to the Limpopo Department of Education to confirm the results of the school. The Department had not responded at the time of publication.

A look at the 2025 NSC exam results

KwaZulu-Natal had the highest pass rate of 90.6%, followed by the Free state which achieved an 89.33% pass rate. Gauteng came in third with a pass rate of 89.06%. The Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, noted that the 88% national pass rate was 0.7% higher than the class of 2024, with over 656,000 learners passing their exam and 345,000 obtaining bachelor's passes.

The Independent Examinations Board recorded a 98.31% pass rate, which was a slight drop from last year's pass rate of 98.47%. More than 16,000 full-time candidates and 1,350 part-time candidates wrote the IEB exams. A totalof 89.12% of the matriculants who wrote exams obtained a bachelor's pass rate of 89.12%, while 7.56% qualified for diploma studies.

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What did South Africans say?

Netizens were stunned and had questions about the school's teachers and learners.

MZulu wa Limpopo asked:

"0%? What were the teachers doing throughout the year?"

Sizwe said:

"I wouldn't blame the teachers in this case. I would like to do a proper, thorough investigation into these poor results. You might find that there are little to no resources or a deeper problem than this."

Public Servant said:

"I know the school. It's bad there."

Kadikwe said:

"I trust it will be one of the schools to be visited by the Premier and the MEC. Immediate intervention is needed."

Ndayo said:

"They must speak up about the kind of help they need. These are people's futures."

Department of Education worried about gender gap in results

In a related article, Briefly News reported that the Department of Basic Education sounded the alarm on the gender gap in the 2025 matric exam results. Gwarube was concerned that a growing number of high school boys were dropping out.

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She said that one of the reasons is due to grade repetition. This results in the learner giving up and dropping out.

Source: Briefly News