Stadio to build a new campus in Durbanville

• The company plans to open the location with 1,000 students in 2026 as enrolment soars

Private higher education provider Stadio is experiencing such high demand it has decided to proceed with building its Durbanville campus after numbers at its Bellville campus spiked 57% this year.

It plans to open the new location with 1,000 students in 2026 and possibly use it to support distance-education students who need to use computer labs or facilities after hours.

The board has approved the construction of the campus in phases, with construction for phase one starting in 2024 at a cost of R220m. The construction will be funded 50% in cash and the rest through long-term debt.

The group, which has about 90% of students online, has experienced high demand for distance and in-person tertiary education. In 2023, distancelearning student numbers grew 11% to 40,689. Contact-learning student numbers grew 2% to 5,819.

“This is a positive sign considering a 4% decline in contact learning student numbers in the prior year,” the group said.

CEO Chris Vorster said it decided to start the Durbanville campus as it had the evidence to build another in-person campus. Stadio also has a campus in Centurion.

“We see fantastic student number growth. We are very confident that the model is working and so we want to go ahead with the construction.”

Demand would make the new campus profitable in a

57%

was the increase in enrolments at Stadio’s Bellville campus

R220m

is the cost of the first phase of the Durbanville campus, construction of which will start in 2024

“very short time”, he said.

Demand for private tertiary tuition is growing partly due to insufficient space at state universities, but students also enrol because there are fewer protests than at some state institutions.

“It’s a safe environment that gets on with teaching and learning. They also love the brand. And it is affordable.”

Stadio Holdings has reported a 27% increase in profit for the year to end-December due to good growth in new student numbers. Revenue increased 16% to R1.4bn and profit after tax was up 27% to R236m.

The group monitors student numbers on a semester basis. First semester student enrolments rose 9% to 42,874 students at end-June 2023, while second semester student enrolments increased 10% to 46,508 by end-December.

Stadio said strong demand for professional qualifications continued to drive strong growth in registrations for the period.

It now offers almost 100 accredited courses, including law, policing, film, IT, architecture, education and chartered accounting.

Headline earnings per share rose to 24.5c from 20c a year ago.

The increase in student numbers, good cost controls and efficiencies all contributed to what Stadio described as a “solid set of results, despite a challenging economic environment”.

It declared a final dividend of 10c per share, up from 8.9c a year ago.

In December, the group increased its stake in Milpark Education to 83.1% after buying Brimstone Investment Corporation’s 12.8% share for R117.5m. The acquisition followed the purchase of 1.9% of Milpark from minorities for R15.4m earlier that month.

Milpark Education was established in 1997 and offers distance learning and online higher education, focusing on business, commerce, accounting, finance, insurance and banking qualifications.

Milpark became the largest provider of candidates sitting for the chartered accounting examinations in 2023 and topped the list for the highest number of first-time passes compared to its peers, Stadio said.

Stadio said it aimed to enrol 56,000 students by 2026. Less than 40% of matriculants gained places at government universities, providing the company with a big pool of potential students, it said.

The company, which owns brands such as Afda, Milpark and Lisof, was spun out of PSG-controlled private school business Curro in 2017.

Stadio said demand for quality higher education in SA remained high. “We are encouraged by the positive growth in new students on our contact learning mode of delivery and excited about the growth opportunities evident in the distance learning mode of delivery.”