The man who founded South Africa’s largest private school business

Dr Chris van der Merwe founded Curro, South Africa’s largest private school business worth over R7 billion, in 1998.

Today, Curro is listed on the JSE and generates billions in revenue every year, but it started with only 28 learners being taught in the vestry of a church.

Van der Merwe grew up in Goodwood, Western Cape, with his sister and mother, who raised them alone since his father died when he was only three years old. 

“My mother was a widow who relied on a small pension my father had from the police force before he died,” Van der Merwe told Financial Minds. “That definitely thrust me into a position where I had to acquire leadership skills quite early.”

From an early age, he had an entrepreneurial spirit and was determined to achieve any goal he set for himself.

He set his mind on becoming a teacher, and he started his first teaching job at Gene Louw Primary School. 

Here, he met Thys Franken, who was experimenting with a modular approach to education. 

The topic interested Van der Merwe so much that he pursued a Master’s degree with a thesis on the use of electronic learning modules, which he finished in 1992.

In 1993, while still working at Gene Louw, he started SkoolCor with Eddie Conradie and Boetie Ungerer, who was an external moderator for his Master’s thesis. 

The company published and sold electronic learning modules as substitutes for textbooks.

In 1997, after completing his doctorate at Stellenbosch, he applied for a job at the Western Cape Department of Education. 

At the time, he and his wife, Stephnie, were both deputy heads at their respective schools, Stephnie at Parow North Primary School and Chris at Fanie Theron Primary School.

Unfortunately, he was rejected from the position, and that evening, on a “stoep” without a railing, his wife said something that would change his life. 

“Hello, you’re 31. Are you going to be a deputy head for the rest of your life? There are at least 30 years ahead of you, and your opportunities are dwindling. Why don’t we start our own home school?” she asked.

The founding of Curro

Initially, their plan was to teach 40 Grade 4 learners in English and Afrikaans, gradually taking on Grade 5, 6 and 7 learners as well. 

However, according to Curro, word spread of their plan to start this home school and interest grew quickly. 

Eventually, parents began stopping them after school, saying “Surely you can’t take only 40 learners. It must be a bigger school”.

Boetie Ungerer was the first co-founder to join Curro, and his joining gave Van der Merwe the confidence to really get the ball rolling. 

“Bolstered by Boetie joining, I put in my request to resign from state education and started looking at possible sites for a small independent school while working on my business plan,” Van der Merwe said.  

“My first letter to the municipality of Durbanville was written in June 1997 but was unsuccessful. In November, my resignation was accepted along with my offer that I’d pay for a substitute’s salary for six months. This bought me some time.”

They decided to open the school in July of 1998, which they marketed by printing 40,000 pamphlets using SkoolCor’s printing facilities.

“The only problem was we still didn’t have a building, office or secretary. So, we printed ‘RSVP secretary’ and my home number at the bottom of the pamphlets and I asked my housekeeper, Cynthia Onverwag, to man the phone,” he said.

“The first few days there were zero calls. Then a few and eventually there were about 160 names on our list.”

On 15 July 1998, Curro opened its doors in a church in Vierlanden with 28 learners. A year later, 10 bricklayers and builders started construction of the first campus in Durbanville.

By the end of 2010, Curro had made a massive profit, and Van der Merwe decided that he wanted to list on the JSE. 

He got into his precious small black BMW Z4 and drove to tell Jannie Mouton – the CEO of PSG, which had acquired a 50% stake in Curro the year before – that he wanted to list.  

“Jannie looked at me. Then he started laughing. ‘Chris,’ he said, ‘Now I like you.’ And then we listed.”

In June 2011, Curro was listed on the Alternative Exchange (AltX) of the JSE, with a market capitalisation of approximately R400 million. 

“In the army, I learned to keep a pretty good rhythm. So when the representative of the JSE announced: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the CEO of Curro Holdings is about to list Curro on the stock exchange,’ I started banging out a brisk beat: 08:58 … 08:59 … 09:00.” 

“Still drumming, I looked up. The screen flickered and the price flashed on the screen: R5.50. The next moment, the numbers started rolling. Climbing and climbing.” 

“By 11:00, it hit R11 before it slowly levelled out to R7. And we thought it would be R3.”

A year later, now with 12,000 students and 19 campuses, Curro moved to the Main Board of the JSE. 

The business has continued to grow remarkably since then, and today, Curro has 72,758 learners across 189 schools.

For the 2023 financial year, the company made a revenue of more than R4.7 billion, according to the company’s latest full-year financial results. 

In 2017, Van der Merwe stepped down as Curro’s CEO to help found Stadio Holdings, the company’s higher education division, which is also listed on the JSE. 

Stadio now has more than 47,000 students and generates a revenue of over R800 million. 

Although he has since resigned as Stadio’s CEO, he is still serving as non-executive director on the board.

“Creating Curro is one of the many beautiful phases in my life, but I could never have achieved it without the teachers, parents and learners who joined Curro in its infancy,” he said. 

“I had a drive to create something for the nation; in fact, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I never started Curro with the intention of making money.” 

“I wanted to serve the country by initiating affordable private education. Ultimately, I became CEO and was paid good money which made me feel like I had been rewarded for my hard work.”