By Lebone Rodah
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG) achieved a 100% pass rate in the 2025 NSC exams, extending a multi-year record of academic performance and highlighting the role of a holistic, trauma-informed education model for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.
OWLAG is officially recognised as a trauma-informed school, a model that acknowledges the effects of abuse, poverty, abandonment and other adverse childhood experiences on learning.
In an interview with Inside Education, Executive Director Gugu Ndebele described the achievement as both emotional and affirming, given the socio-economic realities many learners face.
Ndebele said the girls often come from households earning less than R10,000 a month and arrive with schooling gaps and limited access to health and social services.
“It’s always emotional for me, because what it says to me is that our girls in particular are strong,” Ndebele said of the results.
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“What we need to do as schools is to build on that strength, instead of reminding them this is where they come from.”
Since its establishment, the academy has produced nearly 900 matric graduates, many of whom go on to study at universities across South Africa.
Ndebele credited the school’s outcomes to its emphasis on “the whole child” rather than academics alone.
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She said a defining feature of the academy is its continued support after learners leave school.
Through a foundation linked to OWLAG, graduates receive a comprehensive “care package” when they enter university, including help with accommodation deposits, monthly stipends, medical aid, access to psychological services, and dedicated mentors at each institution.
“All of them have got mentors so that they help with the transition, and they stay with them until they finish university,” she said.
“But they have to pass, if you stumble a bit we might suspend it, but you can come back.”
The academy also maintains close contact with universities, faculties and alumni networks to help students adjust to the demands of tertiary education.
Teachers told Inside Education about the preparation behind the 2025 cohort’s results, including the discipline and commitment they said learners brought to the final stretch of matric.
“The girls were very driven. They were very keen. They showed up, which was quite exciting, just to see how differently they also just showed up for themselves,” said OWLAG Head of Mathematics, Brian Buthelezi.
Head of English at the academy, Radeshree Naidoo, who teaches grades 11 and 12, said she was “very proud” of the multiple distinctions obtained for the language.
“There was lots of intensive work — even after school and after our core English lessons — during which we had to make sure that learners got that extra or additional support, so that they would be exam-ready and perform the way they performed,” Naidoo said.
English teacher Lettie Tervit said language presented an early challenge for many learners, particularly those who did not enter the academy with an English home language background.
“Many of them came from primary schools where they did not do English as a home language, so it was a major adjustment for them,” Tervit said.
“Throughout their journey, it’s been a team effort, just putting in the extra time with them, giving them grace and love and acceptance — and it works”.
Sharne Geysers, who is also an English teacher, highlighted the role of parents and the school’s approach to communication with families, particularly those from rural areas, in attaining positive, holistic outcomes.
“The social workers are basically our connection with the parents because the parents from many rural areas, for example, struggle to hear what we are saying because we don’t speak English the way they are used to hearing English,” Geysers said.
“We have a good relationship with the parents. We do communicate with them, but we also use the social workers quite a bit.”
Besides academic performance, Geysers said teachers also focused on the well-being of learners, including “their physical safety and their nutrition”.
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“We understand that you can’t just teach a child, because they get triggered by many things. Our teachers and all of us are trained to be able to recognise the triggers and regulate the child”.
Ndebele likened the approach to preparing fertile soil before planting a seed, saying that nutrition, safety, emotional wellbeing and stability must be established for learning to flourish.
She said the academy’s trauma-informed approach could be replicated more widely if education was treated as a central national priority, and called for stronger collaboration between government departments — including health, public works, water and sanitation, social services and youth care centres — to support schools as community hubs.
“People don’t realise that education is probably the [country’s] most important resource, and that our economy is not going to grow unless we invest in education,” she said.
Ndebele said the academy had already been sharing its trauma-informed practices through workshops with government departments and other schools, and had plans to scale the model through partnerships.
While stressing the importance of educating girls, she cautioned against sidelining boys in the process.
“If you educate a woman — it’s really not just a slogan — you educate a nation. Women, by nature, are nurturers. When you invest in them, you know you’re investing in people who are interested in the growth of the country,” she said.
“[If] you leave the boys behind, you are creating a disgruntled and disillusioned adult male. As we invest in girls, we must understand that the boy child is just as important,” she said.
INSIDE EDUCATION
