Oprah Winfrey Academy in South Africa Will Close After 2027 School Year

Oprah Winfrey told students, staff and alumnae this week that the residential campus of her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa will close at the end of the 2027 academic year, concluding a project she opened in 2007 and shifting her investment toward a national scholarship program. TMZ and the Associated Press carried the announcement Wednesday, and South African outlets confirmed the timetable with provincial officials the following day.

Under the plan, the Oprah Winfrey academy campus at Henley on Klip, a small town on the Vaal River south of Johannesburg, transfers to the Gauteng Department of Education once the final classes finish. Winfrey's team says the successor scholarship program will roughly double the number of girls who gain access to top schools through her funding.

E! News reported that Winfrey delivered parts of the announcement in video statements covered by Oprah Daily, telling former students that the dream that began with one academy will now reach farther and open doors for more young women. Her office presented the decision as the completion of a proof of concept: the school demonstrated what academically gifted girls from low income households achieve when given full resources, and the scholarship model now extends that finding beyond a single campus.

Winfrey put the ambition in her own words in a statement to Oprah Daily carried by KTVU: "I'm excited that this next chapter will allow us to reach even more young women across South Africa and continue the promise that began more than 20 years ago." Complex quoted a companion line from the announcement, "My mission doesn't end with one campus," that her office has used to frame the shift from bricks to bursaries.

Handover Written Into the Original Agreement

Winfrey's organization said the transfer of the property to provincial authorities was envisaged in the original partnership agreement struck when the school was established, according to TimesLIVE. The campus, which cost approximately 40 million dollars to build, currently enrolls 322 students in grades eight through twelve and employs 33 teaching staff, Billionaires.Africa reported.

Two more classes will graduate before the transition takes effect, meaning the academy operates on a normal calendar through 2027. Winfrey, 72, characterized the change as an evolution of the mission rather than an ending. "The dream was never simply to build a school," she said in a statement quoted across multiple outlets, describing the goal as an investment in the potential of young women rather than in a single campus.

Reporting on the property fills in the scale of what Gauteng inherits. KTVU described a 22 acre site with purpose built facilities, and construction accounts from the school's 2007 opening counted 28 buildings across the campus. Complex reported that the school has maintained a 100 percent matric pass rate, the South African school leaving benchmark, across its graduating classes.

Current Students Keep Full Funding Through Graduation

Students who cannot complete their schooling before the closure will move to other leading South African schools with tuition paid in full by Winfrey through graduation, according to reporting syndicated by TEGNA stations and confirmed by TimesLIVE. The academy says each enrolled learner will receive continued academic, financial and personal support during the transition.

That promise extends the model the Oprah Winfrey academy has followed since its founding: full scholarships covering tuition, board and support services for academically talented girls from households with limited income. TimesLIVE reported that 99 percent of surveyed graduates went on to higher education, and the school counts doctors, engineers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scientists and business leaders among its alumnae.

Placement Team Consults Every Family

Mechanics of the transition are further along than the scholarship blueprint. Bizcommunity reported that a specialist placement team is leading the process in direct consultation with every parent and girl, weighing academic fit, wellbeing and continuity for each learner individually. That guarantee applies whether a student finishes at the Henley on Klip campus or transfers to a receiving school, and it runs through the completion of grade twelve in every case.

Scholarship Model Projected to Double Reach

Winfrey's representatives told E! News the new initiative will place scholarship recipients at leading schools across South Africa rather than concentrating resources in one residential institution. The stated aim, doubling the number of girls served, formed the core of the public rationale for winding down campus operations.

Specific details remain limited. Billionaires.Africa noted that the funding commitment, annual recipient numbers and the list of participating schools had not been announced as of Thursday. The Oprah Winfrey academy has not said how many current employees will move to the provincial payroll, remain with the scholarship program or leave.

OWLS Banner Points to Existing Machinery

One clue to the successor program's shape already sits on the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation website. The foundation lists a scholarship stream called the Oprah Winfrey Leaders Scholarship, shortened to OWLS, funded jointly with the Herrendorf Family Foundation. According to the foundation's own description, the program "supports academically gifted students who demonstrate leadership in their communities" and pairs financial assistance with mentorship and access to a network of speakers and thought leaders. Beyond tuition money, the foundation says the program "creates a network between the students and offers unique access to speakers and thought leaders in various fields," a structure that echoes the mentoring culture the residential campus built around its boarders.

Submissions to that program are currently closed, and the page asks applicants to check back in the coming months, timing that leaves room for a relaunch aligned with the South African expansion. Winfrey's representatives have not confirmed whether the enlarged Oprah Winfrey academy successor will operate under the OWLS name, so the connection remains suggestive rather than announced.

Gauteng Officials Pledge Continuity on the Vaal Campus

Gauteng education authorities welcomed the plan and said administrative work on the transfer has already begun. The provincial education department stated that preparations will continue over the coming months to ensure "an orderly, seamless and responsible transfer" of the academy's assets and facilities after the 2027 academic year, TimesLIVE reported.

Education MEC Lebogang Maile said the department intends to preserve the institution's record of academic excellence and ethical leadership and to keep the campus serving the people of Gauteng. Maile framed the school's two decades of results as proof that investing in the education of young women functions as a strategic national investment rather than an act of charity, according to IOL.

The department also confirmed the guarantee that matters most to families now enrolled: every learner currently at the school will be able to complete her education with uninterrupted academic, financial and personal support.

Two Decades From a Mandela Conversation

The Oprah Winfrey academy traces its origin to a 2000 conversation between Winfrey and Nelson Mandela, which led to a six year development effort and the school's opening in January 2007, Billionaires.Africa reported. The first class of 72 students graduated in 2011, and more than 1,000 girls have passed through the school since it opened.

The school has always operated as a free tuition boarding institution for grades eight through twelve, recruiting high performing girls from families of limited means across South Africa's nine provinces. Admission has been highly selective throughout the school's history, and the residential structure allowed the academy to provide meals, health care, counseling and enrichment alongside the academic program.

Winfrey has remained personally involved across the school's life, visiting the campus, mentoring students and funding university studies for graduates, many of whom she has described as extended family. In her announcement she pointed to alumnae working as businesswomen, lawyers, doctors, digital content creators, artists, managers and chief executives, E! News reported.

South African coverage generally refers to the school by its abbreviation, Owlag, and the institution's own statement used precise language about what ends and what continues. Released Wednesday, July 29, the statement said the residential campus "will conclude its role as the centre of the programme" once the 2027 academic year finishes, phrasing carried by Bizcommunity that positions the scholarship expansion as the program's new center rather than a replacement for it. Wording of that kind matters to alumnae networks, which remain organized around the campus identity and will need a new institutional home once the province takes over.

For the province, absorbing a purpose built residential campus with the academy's facilities represents an unusual windfall. Provincial schools in the Vaal region rarely match the infrastructure standard of a privately funded boarding institution, and the department has signaled it intends to keep the site operating as a school rather than repurposing it.

Rough Opening Year and Courtroom Tests

Any honest account of the school's arc includes a turbulent start. Months after the January 2007 opening, dorm matron Tiny Virginia Makopo was accused of physical and sexual abuse involving multiple students, and Winfrey flew to South Africa to apologize to parents and overhaul campus operations, Complex reported. A South African court acquitted Makopo of all 14 charges in 2010, a verdict Winfrey said at the time left her disappointed.

Legal trouble ran in more than one direction during those years. Former headmistress Nomvuyo Mzamane sued Winfrey for defamation over remarks made during the abuse investigation, a case the two sides settled out of court. Complex also cited student misconduct allegations in 2009 and a 2011 police investigation involving the death of a newborn connected to the campus. None of those episodes ultimately defined the institution: the Oprah Winfrey academy rebuilt its reputation over the following decade into the school provincial officials now describe as a model of academic excellence.

Open items will shape how the transition is judged. The province has not yet published an operating budget for the campus, and no announcement has addressed whether the school will remain girls only, retain selective admissions or continue as a boarding facility under public management. Billionaires.Africa noted the absence of detail on how a facility built to private standards will be sustained within provincial budget constraints.

Watch points over the next year include the first published terms of the scholarship program, the province's staffing and budget plan for the campus, and any statement on admissions policy for the school under public management. Gauteng officials have committed to updates as the administrative transfer proceeds through the coming months, which gives families and alumnae a defined channel for answers before the final classes graduate.

On the philanthropy side, the scale of the scholarship commitment remains the central unknown. Doubling reach is a projection from Winfrey's team, not yet a published budget line. What is confirmed: the Oprah Winfrey academy operates normally through 2027, every current student finishes her education fully funded, and one of the most visible educational philanthropy projects of the past two decades changes form rather than disappearing.