South Africa

South Africa’s new R3.2 billion private Afrikaans university on track

Shaun Jacobs • 3 March 2026

Significant progress has been made on the construction of a R3.2 billion Akademia university campus in Pretoria East, with it set to be completed in 2028.

The university campus will be able to accommodate over 6,000 students, and is the largest project in the history of the Afrikaans language community.

The project is being built by the Solidarity Movement in partnership with Kanton and is among the largest private-sector capital expenditure projects in South Africa in recent years.

Head of Kanton, Henk Schalekamp, recently provided an update regarding the progress made on the construction of the new campus following the official sod-turning ceremony at the end of 2025.

Much of the early construction work is earth-moving to create an area where structures can be built and basic services provided. In other words, much of the existing work is building out the infrastructure for the rest of the campus to come to life.

“We have done the earthworks for phases one and two together, because we found material that we needed for phase one in the areas where we would build phase two,” Schalekamp explained.

“So, we decided to do this to avoid having to import material onto the site, but this now required us to move 360,000 cubic meters of soil and material. This equates to a freight train carrying 10,000 wagons that is 140 km long.”

Schalekamp explained that this creates the platform for the construction of infrastructure and buildings. In effect, it is the preparation of the site for ‘real construction’.

The overall development is huge, occurring on over 200 hectares of land and wil include lecture halls, laboratories, a library, and eight residences.

A central student hub, dining facilities, a classical chapel, and a 2,000-seat auditorium will further add to the campus’s facilities.

In addition, extensive indoor and outdoor sports facilities are being designed, while an experimental farm will support the institution’s future offerings in the natural and agricultural sciences.

The development will be located in Pretoria, eight kilometres from Solomon Mahlangu Drive on the Boschkop Road.

Kanton said that 23 kilometres of underground pipes will be laid, with over 19 million litres of water storage space for drinking water, fire safety, and irrigation.

It is estimated that the construction of the site will take 7.1 million bricks and 110,000 square metres of plaster. Over 40 kilometres of optical fibre cabling will be laid around the site.

Building a university

Schalekamp explained that building a project of this scale takes immense time and resources, with it being the culmination of nearly five years of planning.

“In 2019, we first identified the land for the campus. At that time, we knew we would build a campus, but Akademia only had 700 enrolled students then,” Schalekamp explained.

“This was before the pandemic and before we had a residential offering. But we knew this was going to happen at some point. So we pulled Akademia and said that we are going in this direction, and you must come along.”

The land was purchased in March 2024 after five years of fulfilling various conditions, convincing Akademia, and discussing how the project would be funded.

Much of this happened behind closed doors, with the project only being made public towards the end of 2024.

While occurring late in the year, the size of the project was immense, with Nedbank including it in its annual Capital Expenditure Project Listing report for the first time in the 2024 edition.

The R3.2 billion project was listed as one of the largest private investments in South Africa, behind Calgro M3’s new R18 billion city just outside Sandton.

“Phase one of the project will amount to approximately R1.8 billion and will be completed on 1 January 2028, while the total development cost will be more than R3 billion,” Schalekamp said at the time.

Kanton has a track record of delivering projects on time and within budget, as demonstrated by their work on Solidarity’s Sol-Tech technical college campus in Centurion.

Towards the end of 2025, Kanton began with the bulk earthworks on the site, with the company funding this phase using its own balance sheet.

This was done as the financing and capital raised, largely through Solidarity donations, were mobilised to fund the full phase one construction.

“By the end of 2025, we had completed the bulk earthworks and had the sod-turning event. There we began to assemble contractors and gave the site over to the main contractor on 12 January,” Schalekamp said.

“They have taken over the site. It is a completely different place now with new management.”

Phase one will be handed over to Akademia in November 2027 to ensure it is ready to take in students in January 2028.