Independent schools have the potential to supplement South Africa’s struggling public education sector and relieve some of the strain on government to provide quality education to a growing population, according to Kelly Joshua, Head of Education Investments at Old Mutual Alternative Investments (OMAI).
Joshua was speaking following the release of matric results for the schools in OMAI’s Schools & Education Investment Impact Fund South Africa (SEIIFSA) which, for the sixth year in a row, has delivered an impressive set of matric results.
SEIIFSA’s matric pass rate of 92.3% in 2021 materially outperformed the national average of 76.4% and its bachelor pass rate of 59.2% topped the national average of 36.4% by a significant margin. In addition, OMAI’s second education impact fund, EduFund, celebrated its first set of matric results with a 100% pass rate and a 93% bachelor pass rate.
Together, the two funds have invested in schools providing a quality education to more than 24,000 learners across South Africa, serving primarily the Affordable (85%) and Middle Income (15%) market segments between their current portfolio of schools.
OMAI invests in the creation of quality, independent education offerings, while targeting a commercially attractive return for its investors, a model which is making significant inroads into some of the public education sector’s most pressing challenges. This at a time when the department of education has warned of violence compromising learners’ safety, a loss of learning time due to Covid-19, strained infrastructure, and capacity issues in the public education sector at the beginning of the 2022 academic year.
Many of OMAI’s portfolio of schools serve communities with significant barriers to accessing a quality education, often forcing parents to seek solutions elsewhere. It is within this context that OMAI invests in the creation of quality education offerings in underserved communities, alongside top independent education operators, making education more accessible, safer, and with reduced travel costs and time for learners from the local community.
“We are passionate about investing in our youth and helping to shape their futures. The 2021 SEIIFSA and EduFund matric results provide clear evidence that our independent schools model is working and providing parents with a better, more accessible alternative,” said Joshua.
Joshua said their ongoing academic successes are a collaborative effort between OMAI and the management teams of its portfolio schools, who are all committed to creating an enabling environment for learners and a portfolio of commercially attractive investments for SEIIFSA and EduFund’s investors.
“As an active investor, we work closely with our operators and management teams to ensure that our schools provide the highest standards of education and that we deliver attractive financial returns to our investors.”
“We are also seeing an increasing number of top performers coming through the ranks in SEIIFSA, with 33 learners from our 15 schools participating in the 2021 exams achieving 4 or more distinctions, and many remarkable stories of learners going on to study degrees at top universities,” says Joshua.
- 7 distinctions – 7 Learners
- 6 distinctions – 8 Learners
- 5 distinctions – 6 Learners
- 4 distinctions – 12 Learners
Joshua notes that consumer demand for their education offering continues to grow and that, despite the lingering effects of Covid-19 and the resultant operational disruptions, SEIIFSA continues to deliver financial returns in line with the expectations of its investors, and EduFund continues to make new, high quality investments for the future.