Thinus Ferreira
Oprah Winfrey is closing her girls' school in South Africa next year, 20 years after it opened in Henley-on-Klip, with the talk show-philanthropist returning to a bursary programme that she says will help more girls.
At the end of the 2027 academic year, the buildings and grounds of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG) will be returned to the Gauteng Department of Education, in accordance with the original partnership agreement the talk show titan signed more than two decades ago with the South African government.
Every student currently enrolled at OWLAG will get to complete their education, with Winfrey promising "uninterrupted academic, financial and personal support".
The start-up years of Winfrey's school were severely mired in controversy.
In late 2007, a female dormitory matron, Tiny Virginia Makopo, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of assault, indecent assault, and criminal injury. She was accused of physically and sexually abusing at least six students.
In 2010, she was ultimately acquitted, with the magistrate ruling that the state failed to prove its case.
Winfrey expressed her extreme disappointment at the time and said, "We began this child molestation trial in July 2008. More than two years later, I am profoundly disappointed at the outcome of the trial. I will forever be proud of the nine girls who testified with the courage and conviction to be heard"
After that, the academy's first headmistress, Nomvuyo Mzamane, was suspended and later filed a defamation lawsuit against Winfrey for implying she had covered up the abuse. Winfrey settled the lawsuit out of court in 2010.
The early years also saw complaints from parents regarding strict visitation rules, and later in 2009, a separate scandal resulted in the expulsion of several students for bullying and sexual harassment of classmates.
Yet despite the rocky start, Winfrey remained extremely dedicated to the institution, personally and financially, and kept investing hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure its long-term success.
OWLAG overcame its scandal-start with over 1 000 girls who eventually passed matric, and Winfrey also paying for their further tertiary studies in South Africa and abroad.
Today, OWLAG alumnae are working as doctors, educators, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and business leaders in South Africa and around the world.
Winfrey started her school after conversations with president Nelson Mandela, who implored her to open a school in South Africa after she had already been financially supporting schools and students in South Africa for a number of years.
In response to a media query, in a press statement, Winfrey says "The dream was never simply to build a school".
"It was to invest in the limitless potential of young women. That mission doesn't end with one campus. It continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education. 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."
Winfrey notes that OWLAG's "next chapter" is "rooted in the same belief that inspired its founding".
While Winfrey is shuttering her physical school after 20 years, she will continue to pay for the education of South African girls through an "expanded scholarship program that will provide educational
opportunities for academically talented girls from
communities across the country".
This scholarship programme will support young women at leading schools
throughout South Africa, says Winfrey.
The Gauteng department of education says it will "ensure" OWLAG's "legacy of academic excellence, leadership development, and the creation of opportunities through education continues to benefit future generations of learners" when it takes over the property and residential campus.
