Covid drives rapid rise of online schooling in South Africa

Several online schools have noted a significant increase in enrolments during the pandemic, as pupils appear to be abandoning traditional schools in favour of online classes, and concerns persist around rotational learning and Covid-19 disruptions.  

The spike in enrolments at various online schools follows the Department of Basic Education’s publication of a draft guiding framework for virtual schooling in South Africa, “intended to provide direction to those who want to establish virtual schools in the basic education sector on how to establish and register quality and effective schools”. 

The development of a framework for emerging online schools is a priority as virtual schools have been operating unregistered for several years without adequate policy guidance, according to the document. 

Teneo Online School, which was established before Covid-19, has seen a significant uptake in enrolment during the pandemic, its head of marketing and communications, Sarah Ferguson, told DM168. Starting with 85 pupils in 2018, enrolment grew to 5,400 in 2020, and 8,620 in 2021. 

The online school currently has roughly 9,000 pupils enrolled for 2022, and is preparing for 13,000, said Ferguson. “We are currently enrolling, on average, 60 to 100 learners per day and expect this trend to continue for the rest of January and February.”  

According to Ferguson, it appears “that parents are tiring of rotational learning”, after Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the rotational timetable would remain in place for many schools at the start of the 2022 academic year.

Swales Online Academy, which offers online schooling for grades 4 to 11, has seen an increase in enrolment by 600% in 2022, according to business head Lauren Jacquin. 

Jacquin said that “as a result of schools being forced to incorporate online teaching during remote periods, parents have realised that [online schooling] is a possibility where they would never have been exposed to it before”. She added that “parents are scared of sending their children to school as a result of Covid-19”, which has also contributed to the increased interest in online schooling.

Jacquin’s sentiments were echoed by managing director of Optimi Home, Louise Schoonwinkel, who noted a spike in interest in Impaq’s homeschool system since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Schoonwinkel said Impaq Online School had 18,000 pupils in 2019, which grew to 30,000 in 2021. The company also launched an online school for grades 7 to 11, starting at the beginning of 2022. 

The reasons for parents enrolling their children in Impaq Online School included “safety at home, especially in families with comorbidities”.

“We are also finding that a lot of families who are making the switch found homeschooling and online schooling to be very effective during periods of school closures when schools went online or sent work home during hard lockdown,” added Schoonwinkel. 

Joy-Lynn Liedeman (15) enrolled at a micro-school so she could study science, which she did not have access to in the curriculum she was under. (Photo: Herman Marx)