Stadio to more than triple in size by 2030, plans medical school

Stadio, which runs privately owned universities in South Africa, expects to more than triple its enrollments by 2030 and is in talks to set up a medical school joint venture with a government tertiary education institution, the company’s chief executive officer said.

The Cape Town-based company, which was spun off by the country’s largest operator of private schools in 2017, currently has about 30 000 students on its campuses and on correspondence courses. It’s seeking to expand its offering by acquiring or setting up information technology and medical training facilities, Chris van der Merwe said. Stadio already provides teacher training, operates a business school and offers a fashion qualification.

“I would be very disappointed if we don’t get to 100 000 by 2030,” Van der Merwe said Thursday in an interview in Bloomberg’s offices in Johannesburg. The company, which had 800 students when it listed in 2017, is likely to exceed its pre-listing target of 56 000 students by 2026, he said.

Like its progenitor, Curro, Stadio is seeking to take advantage of the lack of affordable education in South Africa and it charges prices comparable with state institutions. While 400 000 students qualify for university access every year, there are only 170 000 places at government institutions, Van der Merwe said.

“I was a headmaster for many moons,” Van der Merwe said. “The biggest heart sore was when you walk the path with a youngster from grade 1 to 12 only to tell him 70% is not good enough” to get into university.

The company, which expects to spend another R1.5 billion ($106 million) on expansion in coming years, is currently in talks about the medical joint venture with a university he didn’t identify.

“It would be their curriculum, their teaching quality. But they don’t have the infrastructure,” he said. “Currently the planning is for the Western Cape, in Durbanville,” a suburb of Cape Town.
 

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