{"id":854396,"date":"2026-03-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=854396"},"modified":"2026-03-21T07:09:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:09:49","slug":"private-school-parents-are-calling-it-quits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/854396\/private-school-parents-are-calling-it-quits\/","title":{"rendered":"Private school parents in South Africa calling it quits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Parents are increasingly withdrawing their children from private schools as fees continue to skyrocket, with many putting their kids into homeschool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top private schools across the country can charge as much as R130,000 per year, and this is just for pre-school and Grade R. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices can reach over R350,000 per year at the nation’s top private schools by the time students reach matric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government schooling system also faces extreme overcrowding, teacher shortages and placement problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Wynand van Heerden, CEO of tutoring and homeschooling provider Edify, said that more South African parents are turning their backs on traditional schooling in favour of homeschooling each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt about it; homeschooling is increasing in South Africa,” said Van Heerden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The general publicity of the South African school system has not been great, and private schools are becoming unaffordable for the vast majority of the South African population.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that parents are looking for alternatives where they can get the same quality as top private schools for a fraction of the price. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So homeschooling will continue to increase for the next ten years, I can assure you of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa had around 100,000 learners being homeschooled in 2017, and anecdotal evidence suggests that homeschooling in South Africa follows the international trend of 10% annual growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the 2017 data comes before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, where many children experienced the benefits of schooling despite schools being closed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report by the Learning Society Institute from the University of Limpopo showed that there were over 300,000 learners in homeschooling by 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With around 13 million school-age learners, 2% of learners are homeschooled, which is mostly concentrated in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Edify said that these numbers are likely conservative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this was based on voluntary surveys, these numbers are a conservative estimate of the growth behind the rise of homeschooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COO of Edify, Gemay van Heerden, added that homeschooling has become an attractive option in a fast-changing world where the national curriculum cannot keep pace with global developments and workforce shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of parents feel their children can spend their time better learning things like AI,\u201d she said. \u201cWith homeschooling, you can teach kids modern-day topics, because the world is changing fast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three reasons for the switch <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Edify’s Campus in Houghton<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Wynand Van Heerden said that there are three main reasons why parents are making the shift to home education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst of all, we have kids with demanding sports or cultural schedules where they have to condense their school day to the shortest possible time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also see a lot of kids who don\u2019t settle or adapt to mainstream schooling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homeschooling makes it easier to adjust to each child’s needs, unlike in mainstream schools, where students move through the same grade with varying learning strengths and speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, parents are also making the change because they are worried about the content of the South African curriculum, especially in light of the new Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The act, which was signed into law, gives the government greater control over school admissions and language policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edify noted that many parents are concerned that the new legislation poses a threat to mother-tongue education and will cause increased overcrowding by making Grade R compulsory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many are making the switch to homeschooling, they use Edify’s extensive expertise to address the challenges of teaching a child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople think they can get one tutor who will sit with their grade 8 child and do maths, science, geography, English, or that the parent can do it,\u201d Gemay van Heerden explained. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents are increasingly turning to homeschooling due to high private school fees and government capacity issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":835365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[25048],"class_list":["post-854396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-edify"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854396","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=854396"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854576,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854396\/revisions\/854576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}