Low-cost private education initiative

28 March 2012 - 09:15
By Tebogo Monama

INSTEAD of leaving education problems to government, Stacey Brewer has decided to help solve the problem by introducing low fee private schools.

Next year, Brewer, a recent MBA graduate, will launch the first of a series of low fee private schools in Cosmo City, northern Johannesburg.

"Education is an important issue and I believe instead of waiting for government it has to be tackled from the bottom going up.

"Parents want quality education for their children and they are willing to pay for it but we want to make it as affordable as possible," Brewer said.

The school will cost R1,000 a month.

"Our school will be the first in Africa and South Africa to offer the blended education model.

"This means that we will have an interactive structure between teachers and technology.

"The teacher will give children theory for about 75% of the time, 25% will be for computers."

The pilot school will operate for three years and will hopefully be expanded to other areas.

The Cosmo City school will at first cater for 256 Grade R to Grade 2 pupils. At full capacity, it will accommodate 768 pupils.

Brewer said it would cost R4.9-million to build the eight-classroom school in Cosmo City.

"We would like to have 100 schools nationally and if the model works we might even extend to high schools.

"We chose to build the pilot school in Cosmo City because according to the town plan there are supposed to be 11 primary schools but there are only 5," Brewer said.