The Independent Examination Board (IEB) has announced a 98.31% overall pass rate for the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.
All candidates who passed the IEB NSC achieved a qualification that allows access to post-school education:
- 89.12% qualified for degree study, slightly down from 89.37% in 2024;
- 7.83% achieved diploma-level entry, up from 7.56% the year before;
- 1.34% qualified for higher certificate; and
- 0.02% achieved an endorsed NSC.
Top academic performance remained strong, with 161 pupils receiving outstanding achievement awards for placing in the top 5% in six subjects, alongside level 7 in life orientation. Another 125 pupils earned commendable achievement awards for being in the top 5% in five subjects with level 7 in life orientation.
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A total of 17,413 candidates wrote the examinations in October and November 2025. This included 16,063 full-time and 1,350 part-time candidates writing at 277 venues across 263 registered examination centres nationwide. The number of candidates has gone up slightly from 16,304 in 2024.
The 2025 cohort also included pupils from nine new schools across three provinces, alongside continued growth from long-established IEB schools.
Gauteng recorded the highest participation, with 10,421 candidates from 144 schools. KwaZulu-Natal followed with 2,448 candidates from the same number of schools. The Northern Cape had the smallest cohort, with 115 candidates from three schools.
TimesLIVE
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