Lifestyle

2025 matric results: Top-performing private schools in South Africa

Malcolm Libera

 ·13 Jan 2026

Despite their high tuition fees, private schools in South Africa are known for their prestige and excellent results year-on-year. However, some are the cream of the crop.

The perception that private schools provide a superior education is why many parents opt to send their children to these schools in South Africa.

Private schools generally offer smaller class sizes, more individual attention, and access to highly qualified teachers due to having more funding than their public counterparts.

These differences seemed to reflect in their 2025 matric results, with the Department of Basic Education publishing the final National Senior Certificate results for the matric year showing a pass rate of 88%.

This is the highest level in government history and a 0.7 percentage point increase from the 87.3% recorded in 2024.

Despite this record level, the IEB announced on Monday (12 January), an overall pass rate of 98.31% for its 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations—a marginal decrease from the 98.47% recorded in 2024.

The IEB and its board congratulated the matric class of 2025 and extended congratulations to their teachers, parents, guardians, and all those who supported the learners in their studies.

Confidence Digole, CEO of the lEB, said that the drop is not something to be alarmed by, as fluctuations in the pass rate are expected.

Dikgole said that as the IEB continues to grow, small fluctations in the aggregate pass rate are statistically expected and internationally observed in stable assessment systems.

Interestingly, almost all of the top 10 independent girls’ schools on this list achieved more distinctions per candidate than all the top boys’ schools, with the exception of St John’s College.

The same is true for most of the co-educational schools, with the top five achieving an average of over 4.02 distinctions per candidate.

St John’s College topped the all-boys schools, reporting an average of 3.7 distinctions per candidate.

Michaelhouse followed this in second with 2.8 distinctions, and St Benedict’s and St Stithians Boys College tied for third, with 2.72 distinctions.

Comparatively, Roedean School for Girls is the top achiever among all-girls schools, reporting an impressive 4.21 distinctions per candidate.

This was followed by St Mary’s Waverly (4.15), Durban Girls’ College (4.03), Herschel Girls’ School (3.90), and Kingsmead College (3.92). 

Co-educational schools also produced some notable results, with Redhill School and Midstream College topping the lot with an average of 4.30 and 4.20 distinctions per candidate. 

Somerset College is third with 4.15 distinctions, while King David Linksfield (3.87) and Crawford College Sandton (3.60) rounded out the top five.

The top schools

Combining these subcategories to list the top 10 best-performing private schools, the ranking comprises all-girls and co-educational schools, with only one top all-boys school.

The top 10 overall best-performing schools are:

1. Redhill School – co-educational
2. Roedean School for Girls – all-girls
3. Midstream College – co-educational
4. St Mary’s Waverly – all-girls
5. Somerset College – co-educational
6. Durban Girls’ College – all-girls
7. Herschel Girls’ School – all-girls
8. King David Linksfield – co-educational
9. Kingsmead College – all-girls
10. St John’s College – all-boys

The tables below rank the top 10 girls, boys, and co-educational schools based on their average distinctions per candidate and how much they cost per year in school fees.

Note: We looked at the most expensive schools in South Africa and how they compared academically. Due to the large number of IEB schools across South Africa, only well-known schools with over 50 matriculants and some of the highest fees were considered. 

The top girls’ schools 

The top boys’ schools

The top co-educational schools 

Corrections made to the boy’s and co-ed school rankings and text errors.