{"id":871764,"date":"2026-08-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=871764"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:30:41","slug":"one-of-the-best-performing-public-schools-in-south-africa-that-produced-two-nobel-prize-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/871764\/one-of-the-best-performing-public-schools-in-south-africa-that-produced-two-nobel-prize-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the best-performing public schools in South Africa that produced two Nobel Prize winners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pretoria Boys High School is renowned for its sporting accolades, impressive grounds and high academic standards, along with educating two Nobel Prize winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school was founded in the 1880s but was soon closed at the start of the Anglo-Boer War, with the building repurposed as a prisoner-of-war facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This prisoner of war facility is famously where Winston Churchill was held before escaping and travelling approximately 480 kilometres to safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school reopened in 1901, with the purpose of educating English-speaking children after the Transvaal became a British colony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was opened under the headmaster Charles Hope, and initially had 32 pupils, which quickly grew to 132 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Hope left after 15 months, the school became an all-boys institution, with the girls moving to a new school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining boys were split into primary and high schools, and the school has remained an all-boys institution to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following this, 60 hectares were set aside near Pretoria for the construction of Pretoria Boys High School (PBHS), with the design by Piercy Eagle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original buildings are still used by the school, functioning as boarding houses, classrooms, and administrative offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this time, the school came under the guidance of its longest-serving headmaster, William Hofmeyr, who held the position for 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the Boer War, the school accepted both English- and Afrikaans-speaking pupils in an attempt to bridge the divide between the two groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1920s, this divide became apparent, leading to the creation of the Afrikaans Ho\u00ebr Seunskool for Afrikaans-speaking children nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, these schools have a close relationship, with sports fixtures between the two having become a key part of South African schoolboy sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PBHS underwent many changes and expansions over the years, growing to approximately 1,500 pupils by the 2000s and increasing its number of buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2010s, the school added several facilities, including a sports pavilion, a central dining hall, an artificial hockey field, and three sports fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PBHS today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

PBHS still uses its original buildings from the 1900s, but has expanded to include 85 hectares in the heart of Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campus is South of central Pretoria and the Union Buildings, and holds approximately 1,500 learners, with 300 being boarders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school also has roughly 100 full-time staff across its three boarding houses, 30 classrooms, and other academic facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has facilities such as computer labs, a library, and a music centre, as well as an impressive array of sporting grounds and equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes several sports fields spread across the grounds, a hockey astro turf, basketball and tennis courts, swimming and water polo pools, and a shooting range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school also has various supporting amenities, such as a tuck shop, wellness centre, school shop and sanatorium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PBHS also boasts impressive academic standards, achieving a 99.3% matric pass rate in 2025 and 84% of students achieving bachelor’s passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, the school’s high academic standard produced Dr Max Theiler and Professor Michael Levitt, two Nobel Prize winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theiler was awarded a Nobel Prize for developing a vaccine for yellow fever, and was the first South African to win the acclaimed award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levitt was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on multiscale models for complex chemical systems, after matriculating from PBHS in 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school was also host to Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and the first ever trillionaire, following the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of his company SpaceX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk is also known for founding and owning several other companies, including PayPal, Neuralink, Twitter (X), and Tesla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photos of Pretoria Boys High School<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pretoria Boys High School is renowned for its sporting prowess and academic accolades, including two Nobel Prize winners among its alumni.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":871840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2094032651862606288","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2190954391724960","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18166066582460820","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26276,26275,26274,26273],"class_list":["post-871764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-anglo-boer-war","tag-charles-hope","tag-pbhs","tag-pretoria-boys-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871764","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871764"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871871,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871764\/revisions\/871871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}