{"id":476448,"date":"2021-03-17T10:05:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=476448"},"modified":"2021-03-17T10:05:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T08:05:40","slug":"curro-targets-online-and-assisted-learning-as-it-steers-away-from-nursery-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/476448\/curro-targets-online-and-assisted-learning-as-it-steers-away-from-nursery-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Curro targets online and assisted learning as it steers away from nursery schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

JSE-listed independent education provider, Curro has reported a 5% increase in revenue for the financial year ended December 2020, with learner numbers increasing despite a move to remote learning under Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n

Revenue climbed to R3.1 billion, while school’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 1.4% to R886 million, and group EBITDA decreased by 1% to R686 million.<\/p>\n

Headline earnings decreased 32% to R171 million, while headline earnings per share decreased 39% to 36.4 cents per share.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenging conditions brought on by Covid-19 and a period whereby learners were mostly educated remotely, average learner numbers increased 6%, to 60,777 at the end of 2020, Curro said.<\/p>\n

With 2021 registrations included in the tally, the number of registered learners at Curro schools rose to 66,153 in February 2021, said Andries Greyling, chief executive officer of Curro Holdings.<\/p>\n

Greyling said that for the first quarter of last year, Curro traded above expectations in terms of learner number growth and fee collections, however finances were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevenue was impacted by lower ancillary school income, which was lower than in 2019, and an increase in discounts granted from 7.2% of revenue to 10.9% of gross revenue,” he said. “This includes once off Covid-19 related discounts amounting to R81 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Curro Online<\/strong><\/p>\n

Curro said it is working to make education more accessible to learners, which resulted in the launch of an online school in the midst of the pandemic – providing remote teaching and learning for learners from Grade 4 to Grade 10.<\/p>\n

The group opened Curro Online in mid-June 2020, and currently has more than 600 learners enrolled.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the group has implemented other e-learning solutions, the latest being Curro Choice \u2013 an e-learning offering that launched in February 2021 to broaden the range of subjects available to every Curro high school learner nationwide.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, the education group said it will continue to invest in the business, and make better use of its existing facilities as the education landscape changes.<\/p>\n

In the 2020 financial year, it invested R650 million in the business, mainly in respect of the completion of projects already started in 2019 to expand capacity and replace moveable assets.<\/p>\n

The group said it has reduced its exposure to nursery schools, where the market remains subdued, and is converting a number of its nursery schools to primary schools and assisted learning facilities.<\/p>\n

“The primary objective for Curro remains increased capacity utilisation of its existing facilities,” it said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Read: Curro launches new e-learning solution with 20 school subjects<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JSE-listed independent education provider, Curro has reported a 5% increase in revenue for the financial year ended December 2020, with learner numbers increasing despite a move to remote learning under Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":189393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[8043,26],"class_list":["post-476448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-curro","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476448"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476518,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476448\/revisions\/476518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}