Revealing schools with matric paper leak will cause panic: Gwarube

Minister of Education Siviwe Gwarube speaking at a government engagement.

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has declined to disclose the names of the schools in Pretoria whose learners have breached the 2025 examination protocols by leaking question papers.

She says divulging the names of the schools would cause the unnecessary anxiety for both parents and learners.

Gwarube addressed the media in Parliament on the leak.

“We are also think about this because we want to be transparent as possible. The problem thou is that should we reveal the names of the schools we are going to create panic for both learners and parents. So, we have to individually connect with the schools and work with them. But we do not want to cause unnecessary panic. These schools are in a specific area in Pretoria. Our systems were able to narrow them down.”

Gwarube says English, Mathematics and Physical Sciences question papers were leaked before the start of the 2025 matric examinations. Several grade 12 learners and two Basic Education Department employees have been identified as suspects.

They have since been suspended. Gwarube says preliminary investigations have revealed that the incident has not spread to schools outside the identified area.

Gwarube addressed the media in Parliament.

“The breach occurred at the offices of the DBE where question papers are assessed. Of the 162 papers that we have set, seven papers were accessed prior to the examination. These are English paper one, two and three. Mathematics one and two. Physical Sciences paper one and two. These papers were shared via a USB storage device. The spread seems to be confined to seven schools in a specific area in Pretoria. At this stage there is no evidence to show that the breach has spread beyond this localised area. However, we are continuing our investigation.”