Lifestyle

Top-performing private schools in South Africa – and how much they cost to attend

Staff Writer

 ·21 May 2023

Private schools in South Africa are known for their prestige and excellent results year-on-year but also for their costly fees attached.

The allure of sending your child to a private school in South Africa is rooted in the perception that these institutions provide a superior education.

This is partly due to private schools offering 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 2022 matric results, with the IEB confirming a 98.42% pass rate, a slight uptick from 98.39% recorded in 2021.

In contrast, The Department of Basic Education published the final National Senior Certificate results for the 2022 matric year showing a 3.7 percentage point increase in the pass rate to 80.1%.

It might be a surprise to know that the top seven independent girls’ schools on this list achieved more distinctions per candidate than the top boy’s school.

Roedean School for Girls was the top achiever among the all-girls schools – reporting an impressive 4.64 distinctions per candidate. This was followed by St Cyprian’s School (3.9), Durban Girls’ College (3.7), St Mary’s Waverly (3.58), and St Andrew’s Senderwood  (3.26), which make up the top five girls’ schools.

Comparatively, St John’s College topped the all-boys schools, reporting an average of 3.1 distinctions per candidate. Hilton College followed this in second with 2.43 distinctions and St Benedict’s College in third with 2.41.

Co-educational schools also produced some notable results, with King David Linksfield and Somerset College topping the lot with an average of 3.8 distinctions per candidate. Herzlia High School is second with 3.7 distinctions, while SAHETI scored third and achieved 3.6 distinctions.

Combining these subcategories to list the top 10 best-performing private schools, the ranking comprises all-girls and co-educational schools, without any top all-boys schools.

The top 10 overall best-performing schools are:

1. Roedean – all-girls
2. St Cyprian’s School – all-girls
3. King David Linksfield – co-educational
4. Somerset College – co-educational
5. Durban Girls’ College – all-girls
6. Herzlia High School – co-educational
7. SAHETI – co-educational
8. St Mary’s Waverly – all-girls
9. Crawford College Sandton – co-educational
10. Redhill School – co-educational

While all these schools achieved impressive results, it comes at a costly expense as most of these school charge over R150,000 per year for each child to attend. Others like Roedean and St John’s College charge close to R200,000, which is just for day schooling.

For boarding, both Roedean and St John’s College charge well over R300,000 per year, while the likes of Hilton and MichaelHouse charge R369,920 and R347,680, respectively – equating to around R1 million over a child’s high school career.

The tables below rank the top 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. Schools with a yearly fee of over R100,000 were considered. 

The top girls’ schools 

The top boys’ schools

* These schools are boarding schools, which reflects higher fees than those that offer day schooling. 

The top co-educational schools 

[The article has been updated to include more schools]

Read: School fee warning for South Africa