What we know so far
The Oprah Winfrey school South Africa has hosted for nearly two decades will close in its current form at the end of 2027, the media proprietor confirmed in a statement this week.
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, known as OWLAG, will wind down its Henley-on-Klip boarding campus south of Johannesburg and shift to a nationwide scholarship model.
Winfrey announced the decision on Wednesday, 29 July 2026, describing it as an evolution rather than an ending.
The transition is designed so that no current pupil is left without schooling. The academy will graduate two more senior classes through 2027.
Remaining pupils in lower grades will transfer to other top-tier South African schools, with their tuition covered in full by Winfrey through to their graduation.
The campus property will be returned to the Gauteng Department of Education, which will continue to run it as a school. A representative said this fulfils the terms of the original partnership agreement signed when the school was established.
For South Africans, the immediate reassurance is that the physical school and its pupils are being provided for. The bigger change is where Winfrey’s investment goes next.
What the Oprah Winfrey school closure means for girls’ education
The stated aim of the shift is reach. A representative for Winfrey said the scholarship model would ultimately allow double the number of girls to access education, calling that expanded reach the core of the decision.
That reframes the story from a closure into a scaling-up, at least as the foundation presents it. A single boarding school can educate a fixed number of pupils. A scholarship fund can, in principle, support many more across many schools.
The academy has educated girls drawn largely from disadvantaged communities, providing not only tuition but boarding, meals and support on a single campus.
The scholarship model would spread that support across existing schools rather than concentrating it in one institution, which changes the nature of what is offered even as it widens the numbers.
There is a significant gap in what has been announced, and it matters for any family hoping to benefit. Winfrey’s statement did not specify which schools would receive scholarship recipients, how pupils would be selected, what ages or grades would qualify, or how the programme would run without the academy’s residential staff.
The future of the academy’s current teachers and administrators was also not addressed in the announcement.
Key details and figures
The transition as set out by Winfrey and her representatives:
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Institution | Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls |
| Location | Henley-on-Klip, Gauteng |
| Opened | January 2007 |
| Closes in current form | End of 2027 |
| Final intake path | Two more senior classes graduate |
| Remaining pupils | Transferred to top-tier schools, tuition covered by Winfrey |
| Campus | Returned to the Gauteng Department of Education |
| New model | Nationwide scholarship programme |
| Stated goal | Double the number of girls reached |
| Graduates to date | More than 1,000 |
The academy’s origins trace to Winfrey’s friendship with the late former president Nelson Mandela. Reports place their discussions about building a school in South Africa around the year 2000.
The school opened in January 2007. Winfrey has personally invested a sum reported in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the institution over its lifetime.
More than 1,000 girls have graduated since it opened. A study cited by the academy found that nearly all surveyed graduates went on to higher education.
The school has not been without controversy over the years, but it has also become one of the most prominent private education philanthropy projects associated with South Africa.
In her statement, Winfrey said the dream was never simply to build a school. She said her mission “continues in every girl whose future can be transformed through education”.
The framing from her office is consistent across the announcement: the campus closure is presented as a means of extending the same philanthropic goal to more people, not withdrawing from it.
What happens next
The nearest fixed point is the end of 2027, when the academy graduates its final classes and hands the campus back to the Gauteng Department of Education.
Before then, the practical work is placing the lower-grade pupils in new schools with their fees covered, and managing the wind-down of boarding operations.
The scholarship programme is the open question. Winfrey has said it will begin after the current pupils graduate and will aim to double the number of young women receiving full educational funding.
What it will look like in practice has not been detailed. The selection criteria, the partner schools, the age ranges and the administration all remain to be announced.
The position of the academy’s staff is unresolved and is likely to be a focus of attention as the wind-down proceeds.
The Gauteng Department of Education’s plans for the campus, once returned, have also not been set out publicly.
For now, what is confirmed is the closure timeline, the protection of current pupils, and the return of the campus. The scale and shape of the scholarship model that replaces it is the part still to be defined.
