{"id":828659,"date":"2025-06-19T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=828659"},"modified":"2025-06-19T12:36:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T10:36:49","slug":"new-r325-million-private-university-coming-to-south-africa-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/828659\/new-r325-million-private-university-coming-to-south-africa-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"New R325 million private ‘university’ coming to South Africa next year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Listed private education group Stadio’s new Durbanville campus is on track to open for new students in 2026, with its phased development progressing faster than planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said the 13,000 sqm building would be launched in phases, starting in mid-2025 with roads, academic books, offices, lecture halls and parking facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, the new campus plans to offer schools in education, IT, law, media and design, commerce, architecture and engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an update ahead of its AGM, Stadio said that its board approved the building of phase 2 earlier than initially planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total cost of phases 1 and 2 is estimated to be R325 million. Phase 2 is expected to be completed in August 2026 and will increase capacity to more than 6,000 students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Vorster, Stadio’s Chief Executive Officer, previously said that the new campus is part of the strategy to broaden access to higher education and accommodate 100,000 students in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes 80% of these would be distance learning students and 20% contact learning students, with 20,000 students at the campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stadio\u2019s plan is to invest in a few comprehensive campuses instead of several small ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Durbanville campus will thus offer higher certificate qualifications, undergraduate degrees, and post-graduate programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vorster said the new campus will help underpin the group’s national footprint by creating a private tertiary education hub that rivals the Western Cape’s four public universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted a massive demand for higher education in the province but a lack of supply of tertiary institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new campus will also look to tap into the northern suburbs’ growing economy, including the Cape Winelands Airport, and create job opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The addition of Durbanville will push Stadio\u2019s physical non-university campuses to seven, with structures in the Western Cape’s Bellville, KZN’s Musgrave and Gauteng’s Randburg, Hatfield, and Waterfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term “university” can only refer to state-owned institutions, much to the chagrin of private players, with Stadio rival AdvTech pushing to change the regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student numbers growing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
A rendering of the new Stadio Campus<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The update on the campus also came with new data on Stadio’s total student count, which showed an overall growth of 8% to just under 44,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering the challenging South African landscape, the group said the overall growth was satisfactory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a second semester underway, distance learning student numbers continue to grow steadily at 8% per annum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the new campus yet to open, it added that the overall 11% growth in contact learning student numbers is highly positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It believes its contact learning strategy is working, with total contact learning student numbers up 23%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mode of Learning <\/th>30 June 2020<\/th>30 June 2021<\/th>30 June 2022<\/th>30 June 2023<\/th>30 June 2024<\/th>June 2025<\/th>2025 Growth<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Distance Learning<\/td>25 145<\/td>29 119<\/td>33 505<\/td>37 067<\/td>40 702<\/td>43 837<\/td>8%<\/td><\/tr>
Contact Learning<\/td>6 269<\/td>5 921<\/td>5 662<\/td>5 807<\/td>6 322<\/td>7 041<\/td>11%<\/td><\/tr>
Total<\/td>31 414<\/td>35 040<\/td>39 167<\/td>42 874<\/td>47 024<\/td>50 878<\/td>8%<\/td><\/tr>
Share<\/strong> <\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td>–<\/td><\/tr>
% Distance Learning<\/td>80%<\/td>83%<\/td>85%<\/td>86%<\/td>87%<\/td>86%<\/td>–<\/td><\/tr>
% Contact Learning<\/td>20%<\/td>17%<\/td>15%<\/td>14%<\/td>13%<\/td>14%<\/td>–<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stadio’s new Durbanville campus is progressing faster than planned, and is set to open to students in 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":798816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[12509],"class_list":["post-828659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-stadio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828659","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":828692,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828659\/revisions\/828692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}