Top private and public schools in South Africa: cost vs performance

With the persistent perception that the quality of South Africa’s education is in perpetual decline, many parents feel that the only way to secure a future for their children is to turn to private education.

But such a move comes at a price. When looking at the performances of private schools in South Africa (matric results), it’s clear that parents see the results they want for the price they pay.

Many private institutions write the Independent Examination Board (IEB) exams instead of the government’s National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams.

In 2017, 11,464 full-time and 666 part-time candidates from 212 examination centres across SA sat the IEB exams, delivering a 98.76% pass rate (up from 98.67% the year before). Of these, 88.5% passed with bachelor’s entry.

By comparison, 629,155 full-time candidates and 173,276 part-time candidates penned the NSC examinations, delivering a 75.1% pass rate – though only 28.7% passed with bachelor’s entry.

Not a simple numbers game

According to Ruksana Osman, professor and dean of humanities at University of the Witwatersrand, comparing private and public schools isn’t a simple numbers game, however.

“In fact, there is a negligible difference between well-resourced public schools in middle and upper middle class areas and their counterparts in the private sector,” she said.

These high-performing public schools are the exception, not the rule, she said, with the data showing that the vast majority of publicly-funded schools are under-performing.

But that does not mean that quality education in the public sector can’t be found.

According to the school performance report for the 2017 matric exams, there are 115 exceptional public schools which have maintained a 100% pass rate for the past five years – and among these top-performers are some schools that push through a high number of learners that qualify for entry into bachelor’s degrees.

This is achieved at a fraction of the cost of South Africa’s most expensive private schools, that have similar track records and performances.

BusinessTech has compiled data looking at the tuition costs, number of students and number of Bachelor entry passes attained from some of the most expensive private schools and top-performing public schools in South Africa.

How we got the data

Because all the the schools listed below had a pass rate of 100%, we looked at different criteria to determine the best performance – bachelor pass rates. Many of the schools listed have the same bachelor pass rates, so they were ranked by the actual number of students that achieved the passes.

Thus a school where 100 students wrote and 80% attained bachelor’s pass rates (80 learners) will rank higher than a school where 50 students wrote and 90% attained bachelor’s pass rates (45 learners).

For top-performing public schools

• Only schools that have had a 100% pass rate for 5 consecutive years are considered (only 115 schools qualified in 2017);
• Schools are ranked by the number of students that got a bachelor’s pass;
• Data is sourced from the 2017 NSC School Performance Report and the Sowetan’s data for 2017.

For most expensive private schools

• The schools with the highest annual fees are considered;
• Only tuition fees are taken into account (ie, no boarding);
• Schools are ranked by the number of students that got a bachelor’s pass.

The purpose of the tables is not to compare the quality of a private or public education, but rather to show how the top performing public schools delivered bachelor passes compared to the most expensive private schools.

It should be noted that for many private schools, the costs account for facilities, location and other benefits (such as fewer students per class), as well as the history and prestige associated with the schools (ie, status). The analysis does not take this into account, nor does it seek to compare differences between IEB and NSC qualifications, the quality of teachers, or any other factors that may affect the pricing of an institution.

Top-performing public schools in 2017

Public schools have a much higher number of matrics going through their doors, so its understandable that many more students qualify for bachelor passes than their private counterparts.

On average, the rate of bachelor passes at the top performing public schools are far lower than at private schools – but the cost of sending learners to school there is also significantly lower.

* Not all school fee schedules were available at the time of writing, and the schools could not be reached to confirm the current rates.

How the most expensive private schools performed in 2017

The data below is not a comprehensive list of private school performance, taking from the pool of most expensive schools in the country.

** Boarding only | Kingswood College has annual tuition fees of R115,860, but did not publish enough data on its 2017 matric results to determine a place on the list above.

Read: How much it will cost to send your kids to school and university over the next 18 years in South Africa