How South Africa's private school fees compare to government

About R170,000 separates South Africa's most expensive private school from its closest government school competitor.

In the wake of some great radio and television conversations about school fees in South Africa, a few interesting questions popped up. And I also wanted to share this final chart that shows the disparity between the two educational worlds.

Why are girls’ schools cheaper than boys’?

This is particularly noticeable at the government school level, where there are only usually two girls’ schools that make the top ten most expensive government schools in South Africa. At the private school level, several elite girls-only and several co-ed schools have consistently been in the mix.

I’m no education expert by any stretch, but some of the hypotheses I discussed with radio and TV presenters this week were that boys’ sporting infrastructure is traditionally pricey, and they may be harder or more expensive to educate.

But I think much of it has to do with historical discrepancies reaching back centuries - and that it’s unlikely to change at government school level anytime soon.

What I’ve learnt in the last four years of compiling these lists is that with a few outlier exceptions, schools don’t increase their fees by much more than inflation.

If girls’ schools were once disadvantaged, considered cheaper, and therefore priced lower, those discrepancies would live on - until an individual school makes a rash decision to increase fees dramatically.

Although some girls’ schools have increased fees by as much as 25% to try and introduce some parity and presumably increase their resources, this is always off a low base and unusual.

Similarly, there appears to be no catching Kearsney at the top of the list of most expensive private day schools.

Many of the schools in the private school top ten have settled into a spot, and with a few shuffles up and down, it would take a marked and likely controversial percentage increase to shift it.

This, inevitably, led to a second question:

Are high school fees marketing collateral?

In several conversations, I was asked why some schools price themselves so high - and in immediate follow-ups, if this means that the pricey schools are better than the cheaper ones.

This is, of course, not necessarily the case - there are some shining examples of no-fee and desperately poor schools achieving phenomenal results.

But that the two questions seem to go hand-in-hand, and there’s a perception in South Africa that expensive equals better, I would cynically hypothesise that some schools see their placement on these top ten lists not as a bad thing but as a tool in their marketing collateral.

How government school fees compare to private (and some corrections)

It’s far easier to compile a list of private school fees in South Africa - there are fewer high-end private schools, they tend to post openly about their fees, and their positions in the lists remain mostly unchanged year after year.

A retort to the private school list often comes in that these lists exclude international schools, which are sometimes significantly more expensive.

My feeling is that these are oddities rather than norms - many attract wealthy foreigners living in South Africa, and offer astronomical fees and many generous bursaries. Most also don’t operate on traditional South African schooling models, and they’ve never seemed to fit within these lists.

Lastly, there are definitely some ommissions from my list of government schools, as many sharp readers have pointed out. An exhaustive list is nearly impossible, so treat this more as an overview of the trends than a definitive source.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above in the comments or by getting in touch directly.